Leo Frank the Silent and the Damned 2002

THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

THE SILENT AND
TtiE DAMNED

The Murder of Mary Fhagan and
the Ijfnching of Leo Frank

ROBERT SEITZ FREY

AND

NANCY C. THOMPSON

Foreword by
JOHN SEIGENTHALER

^Cooper Square

Press

To Becky J Joshua, and Jeremy
for bein0, and being ours

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Foreword xiii

Introduction xix

1 The Murder 1

2 The Indictment 13

3 The Trial 27

4 The Verdict 51

5 The Appeals 65

6 The Commutation 85

7 The Lynching 93

8 The Burial 101

9 The Prejudice 109

10 The Epilogue 131

11 The Pardon 147

Appendixes

1 Chronology 159

2

Justice Holmes' Dissent

163

3

The Christian Response

169

4

Christian Periodical Histories

189

5

Non-Religious Periodicals of
the Frank Period

195

Additional Reading

199

Bibliography

203

Index

231

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

fbllomn^pa

'0e68)

Hgure
1

Title

Mary Phagan

2

National Pencil Factory

3

John M. Gantt

4

Arthur Mullinax

5

Pretty Young Victim and the Site of Her Murder

6

Mary Phagan's Family and Bloomfield's
Undertaking Establishment

7

Leo M. Frank

8

Marietta Mourns its Loss

9a, 9b

Mary Phagan's Gravesite in Citizens' Cemetery

10

Atlanta City Detectives

11

Held on Suspicion of Murder

12

Two Witnesses in the Coroner's Inquest

13

Judge Leonard Strickland Roan

14

The Attorneys

15

Fred Winburn

16

For the Prosecution

17

Mary Phagan's Aunt, Mother, and Sister

18

The Phagan >Xbmen

IX

X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1 9 The Murder Notes

20 Leo and Lucille Frank at the Trial

(jbllomng pa0e 154)

21

Jim Conley

22

Witnesses for the State

23

Alonzo Mann as a Boy

24

N. V Darley

25

Lemmie Quinn

26

Drawing of How the Murder Might Have
Happened

27

The "Extra" of the Atlanta Journal

28

Leo Frank Convicted

29a, 29b

A Courageous Governor

30

Thomas Edward Watson

31

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' Dissenting
Opinion

32

Governor Slaton Explains the Commutation

33a, 33b

The Lynching in Frey's Grove

34

Leo Frank Hanged Near Marietta

35

Charles F Wittenstein

36

Alonzo Mann by the Grave of Mary Phagan

37

Alonzo Mann Holding Photo

38

Alonzo Mann After Polygraph

39

Drawing Based on Alonzo Mann's Affidavit

ACKNOWLEDGME^^(TS

This is to express appreciation to Dr. George L. Berlin
of Baltimore Hebrew College for his assistance in
developing the primary thematic contours of this work.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Gary S. Hauk, Reference
Librarian at Pitts Theology Library of Emory University in
Atlanta. Mr. Hauk went far beyond the call in answering
the request for information on the Frank case.

We also would like to thank William R. Glass of Emory
University, Professor Stanley N. Rosenbaum of Dickinson
College, Ms Pat Olson of the Christian Century^ Ms Joy K.
Floden of the Central Congregational Church in Atlanta,
and Dr. Joseph Troutman of the Atlanta University Center.

Much appreciated were the efforts of Granville Meader,
Ph.D., in reading this manuscript in its early stages and
providing words of support throughout the writing effort.

Special thanks go to the staff members of the Atlanta
Historical Society, the Georgia Department of Archives
and History, the Special Collections Department of Emory
University, the Atlanta Office of the Anti-Defamation
League, and the Harvard Law School Library. People at
each of these institutions and offices were very helpful in
facilitating our research efforts. Michael Winograd of ADL
in Atlanta and Dale Schwartz, an attorney with Troutman,
Sanders, Lockerman & Ashmore in Atlanta, gave personal
attention to our questions as did Virginia Shadron of the

XI

xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Georgia Department of Archives and History and Judith
Mellins of Harvard Law School. John L. Seigenthaler,
president and publisher of the Nashville Tennessean^ was
extremely generous in sharing his time and insight into the
Frank case with us. Beverly Burnett of the Tennessean was
also very helpfiil.

We would like to acknowledge the interest and enthusi-
asm brought to this project by Charles A. Lean, managing
editor of Madison Books. Lasdy, we thank Roy Hoopes for
adding his editorial polish and personal interest and knowl-
edge to our manuscript.

FOREWORD

By John Scigcnthalcv

It was a dramatic murder trial that marked a sad moment
of history in the annals of the American system of justice;
a controversy that would make and break careers of public
figures; an event that would stir the smoldering coals of
anti-Semitism in Atlanta, ruin the cultural reputation of a
great city for a decade and subvert the administration of
justice in the state of Georgia for more than 70 years.
Finally, a book can record the last chapter: truth exposed,
injustice branded, wrong righted.

Imagine the circumstances: a 13-year-old girl murdered,
her mauled body found hidden in the basement of the
pencil factory where she worked and had come one day to
claim her paycheck.

The physical evidence indicated that she was strangled,
that she was not raped, and that she was robbed of the
pittance of her paycheck. Two barely legible, hardly literate
handwritten notes were located by police near the body.

Overnight, litde Mary Phagan, the victim of brutal mur-
der, became a national heroine. And within a fortnight Leo
Frank, the Jewish manager of the factory accused as her
murderer, became a national villain.

Tension in the community began to grow from the night
the body was discovered until the morning the trial of Leo
Frank began. At the time the crucial testimony was given.

Xlll

xiv FOREWORD

crowds mobbed the streets outside the courthouse scream-
ing for the conviction and execution of "the Jew."

The chief witness against Leo Frank was Jim Conley, a
drunken janitor who was, himself, a suspect when the police
arrested him. Lies poured out of him. He had not been at
the factory that day, he said. He could not read or write
and could not have written the notes found near the body.
Five separate stories he told police as they grilled him over
several days — ^until, finally, with the help of the prosecutors,
he crafted a tale that was strong enough to win an indict-
ment against Frank, his employer.

Frank, said Conley, had committed the murder and he
had enticed him, with promise of money, to help him hide
the body in the basement. Frank had dictated to him the
notes found near the body, Conley swore.

The government found witnesses to swear — ^falsely, it
later turned out — that Frank was a sexual deviant. It was an
attempt to make it appear that Frank had not raped the
little girl because his sexual preferences were not "normal."

His defense was strong; the evidence, with the exception
of Conley's perjury, was absurdly circumstantial; but the
mob atmosphere that surrounded the courtroom was real
and threatening.

On the morning that the guilty verdict was rendered the
trial judge, so certain that Frank would be cleared and so
fearful that the angry mob would try to lynch him, ordered
that he not enter the courtroom but be held in custody
away from the scene.

The frightened jury's verdict of "guilty" appeased the
mob's lust for the blood of "the Jew."

Almost unnoticed in the heat of the trial testimony and
clearly forgotten with the verdict, had been the brief,
virtually meaningless testimony of litde Lonnie Mann, a
stuttering office boy who had worked for Leo Frank and
had been in the factory that day Mary Phagan lost her life.

The lad had been instructed by his parents not to tell

Foreword xv

what he had seen that day and it was almost 70 years before
his crucial evidence was revealed.

So Frank was sentenced to hang. The governor of Geor-
gia conducted his own inquiry into the facts and, convinced
that Frank was not guilty, commuted the sentence to life
imprisonment.

Once more, mob rule exploded. The residence of the
governor had to be protected by a ring of security guards.
The governor left the state and vacationed in California to
evade the mob. His decision robbed the scaffold briefly —
but permanently robbed the governor of a brilliant political
fiiture.

The mob was to be heard from one more time in the
Frank case. Shortly after he entered prison, Leo Frank was
the victim of a brutal assault by a convict who sought to
"avenge" Mary Phagan. Frank survived the knife wound to
his throat. But later a mob broke into prison, kidnapped
him, drove him to a field opposite Mary Phagan's home
and lynched him.

It was a case with historic consequences. As the career of
Gov. John Marshall Slaton ended with his efforts to save
Leo Frank's life, the career of Tom Watson, the populist
race-baiter and anti-Semite, was made. He was washed into
the U. S. Senate on the wave of hate rhetoric he spewed in
the aftermath of the deaths of Mary Phagan and Leo Frank.
Many leading Jewish families deserted Atlanta in the wake
of the murder trial and subsequent lynching. And the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith was born in reaction to
the outrageous flood of anti-Semitic propaganda that sur-
rounded the Frank case.

This is but a brief, admittedly judgmental synopsis of a
tragic miscarriage of justice. But the full story is told with
calm, careful deliberation by Robert Seitz Frey and Nancy
Thompson-Frey, authors who have thoroughly researched
and faithfully related events that rocked the state of Georgia
and shocked the nation more than seven decades ago.

It is a story that has previously attracted the interest of

xvi FOREWORD

authors. Books by Harry Golden and Leonard Dinnerstein
published in the mid-1960s called attention to the then
almost-forgotten case.

But this work by Robert and Nancy Frey is the first book
published since Alonzo Mann, the former office boy, came
forward with his long-held secret.

And this volume also is the first to analyze the mostly
indolent, ignorant and, at times, cowardly response of the
Christian church media when its influence might have
pointed to injustice and saved a human life.

A word of caution about the accoimt. It gives far too
much credit to this writer for the journalistic development
of the Alonzo Mann story that led to the posthumous
pardon of Leo Frank. A team of journalists who are my
colleagues at The Tennessean deserve the lion's share of the
credit. The leader of that team was Jerry Thompson whose
reporter's instincts led him unerringly to Alonzo Mann. He
was supported in his investigation by Robert Sherborne,
Sandra Roberts and Nancy Rhoda. The team's work was
coordinated by Frank Ritter, our paper's deputy managing
editor. Alonzo Mann's courage and determination to tell
his story before his death was, of course, the vital link in
making the pardon possible. Two Nashville lawyers. Bill
Willis, counsel for The Tennessean who advised the team of
journalists, and John Jay Hooker Jr., who at our request and
at his own expense, took Alonzo Mann before the Georgia
pardoning authorities, also contributed to our work. We
were aided by many others who knew of the injustice that
had occurred and were anxious to have it righted. They
include, most significantly. Bill Gralnick of the American
Jewish Committee and Randall Falk, Rabbi, of The Temple
Ghabai Sholom in Nashville. And all of us who worked on
the journalistic enterprise admired the perseverance and
dedication of Dale Schwartz and Charles Wittenstein, the
Atlanta lawyers who never gave up hope of winning a
pardon for Leo Frank.

I dwell on these debts not out of any sense of false

Foreword xvii

modesty, and certainly not in ingratitude to the authors of
this fine book, but to give a brief, perhaps, unimportant
dimension and a slighdy different perspective to one small
aspect of their work.

Leo Frank was, as the authors state, the American Drey-
fus. We must live with the smear of his unjust death. And
this book will help us recall that our potential for evil is
imminent when racist or anti-Semitic poisons bubble from
beneath the surfaces of our national psyche. Thankftilly, at
long last, this book can be written recording that the state
of Georgia finally recognized and wiped out the stain of
mob rule. As slow and as grudging and as guarded as the
pardon was in coming, it reminds us all that injustice will
never be secure so long as good men and women pursue
justice.

INTRODUCTION

On March 11, 1986, the State of Georgia pardoned Leo
Frank. Seventy-three years earlier, on August 25,
1913, Frank had been found guilty of murdering thirteen-
year-old Mary Phagan. And it was, to say the least, an
unusual trial. It took place in Adanta only forty-eight years
after the end of the Civil War in an atmosphere of mob
hostility and violence. During the entire month of the trial,
the angry citizens in the street and the courtroom de-
manded a verdict of guilty. The jury was scared, the judge
was scared, and the prosecutors were scared.

The Ku Klux Klan had been officially disbanded by
Imperial Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest in 1869, but its
spirit still lived in the South. In faa, the K.K.K. would be
officially revived two years after the trial, and the Mary
Phagan murder played a part in the formation of one of its
Georgia chapters. The Klan mentality permeated the atmos-
phere that dominated the Frank trial. It might have been
thought a black man was on trial for raping a white girl.
The fact is, the charge of rape was never brought. Leo Frank
was white and the man who gave the highly suspect and
contradiaory testimony that doomed the white man was
black. There has never been a trial quite like it in the United
States, and it is hoped there never will be another.

What made this hideous stain on our legal system pos-
sible was the same thing that made the Dreyfiis Affair

XIX

XX INTRODUCTION

possible in late nineteenth century France: Leo Frank was a
Jew, and in pre- World War I Atlanta, the curse of racial and
class prejudice was not directed solely at blacks. Kikes,
Wops, Micks, Niggers, the White Trash: they were the
enemies. And from the end of the Civil War until well into
the twentieth century, the southern Establishment knew its
enemies and it knew how to hate. Blacks were to be feared
and hated the most, of course, but they at least knew their
place and rarely caused trouble. But the Jews! Many of them
were smarter and could make money more readily than the
Gentiles, even marry Establishment sons and daughters.
Maybe they were the real enemy — ^the ones to really hate.

And it all seemed to boil to a head in the summer of
1913. The fact that Frank was convicted by a black man,
who, by his own confession to a friend, had had too much
com liquor the day he said he witnessed Frank's seemingly
guilty actions, made no difference. Every effort to appeal
the verdict — even two petitions to the Supreme Court —
failed. It was not until 1986 that the State of Georgia
admitted its error. But by then, most of the principals in
the case were dead. Even Alonzo Mann — ^who was a very
frightened fourteen-year-old boy on the day of the crime
and too scared to tell the truth at the trial — ^was dead. It
was his testimony, brought to the surface in 1982 by the
then-publisher of the Nashville Tennessean and present edi-
torial director of USA Today ^ John Seigenthaler, that made
it impossible for the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles
not to reconsider the Frank case. But Mann died in 1985,
at the age of eighty-seven, unaware that the man who all his
life he had known was innocent was finally pardoned.

To show how deep the emotions from the original crime
still run, when Mary Phagan's great-niece was asked after
the pardon who she felt killed her great-aunt in 1913, she
said quite simply that the evidence shows the murderer was
Leo M. Frank.

As for Frank, what Mary Phagan's relatives thought or
the Georgia parole board decided made little difference. He

Introduction xxi

had been dead seventy-one years, the only Jew ever lynched
in America.

Despite all the evidence suggesting his innocence, Leo
Frank seemed destined to die to atone for the death of
pretty litde Mary Phagan. But what really happened at the
pencil factory in Atlanta on that Saturday morning in April
1913?

Chapter 1

THE MURDER

Nightwatchman Newt Lee made his way down the lad-
der into the dreary basement of the National Pencil
Factory in the early hours of Sunday morning. His step was
faulty, and he missed the last rung. The small gas jet which
burned at the bottom of the ladder had been turned down
very low. Lee did not usually go all the way down into the
basement, but this night he had to use the "colored" toilet.

Gripping his lantern, he peered about the large room,
expecting nothing. Cinders from the furnace crunched un-
der his shoes as the old man made his way around in the
gloomy dampness. The night had been quiet.

After coming out of the toilet, his eyes fell upon a
frightening sight. Holding the lantern a bit higher so as to
get the most light from the soot-blackened globe. Newt
Lee saw a body lying face up in the sawdust. Lee was
terribly frightened. It was about 3:20 A.M., Sunday, April
27, 1913, when he called the Atlanta police station and told
Call Officer Anderson that there was the body of a young
white woman at the National Pencil Factory.

Three Atlanta policemen, an ex-county policeman, and a
newspaper correspondent from the Atlanta Constitution
hurried to the building on Forsyth Street. Sergeant Dobbs

2 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

later testified that Newt Lee, a black man who had worked
about three weeks at the factory, was not frightened or
trembling when the officers arrived. Atlanta newspaper
accounts tell another story: Lee was said to display a wild
and excited manner and to have had trouble finding the
body once the police arrived. When the police lanterns
finally picked up the body in their lights, it was not a pretty
sight. It was lying face down and when Sergeant Brown
looked more closely, he exclaimed: "This is nothing but a
child."

The child was cold. Unable to tell whether the body was
black or white. Sergeant Brown took some wood shavings
from the floor and rubbed the girPs face with them. But he
still could not be positive; so he rolled the girPs stocking
down from her right knee: the skin was white.

The body was extremely dirty. Dirt was inside the dead
girPs mouth, and her tongue was swollen and protruding
from between her teeth. She had been strangled to death.
A piece of heavy twine was tied around her neck, and a
strip from her underskirt was tied around her neck, too.
Her hands were folded beneath her body, but they were not
tied. Her clothing had been torn and several pieces were
missing. On the back of her head at the left was a wound,
and there were cuts on her face and forehead.

A pink parasol was found near the trap door over by the
ladder, though some sources say the parasol was discovered
in the elevator shaft. One shoe and a man's bloody handker-
chief were discovered in a trash pile by the fiirnace in the
basement. Tsvo handwritten notes were found near the
body, one about three feet away and the other some dis-
tance fiirther. On the girPs left wrist was a gold bracelet,
now bent. A signet ring with the letter "W" was still on the
little finger of her right hand.

Miss Grace Hicks, an employee of the pencil company,
was brought to the factory to identify the body. When she
saw the corpse she fainted. But after being revived she
identified it as Mary Phagan, who had worked at the same

The Murder 3

machine with her in the "metal" room. Efforts to contact
the factory's superintendent, Leo Frank, were unsuccessful
until a few hours later in the morning. While still in the
factory basement, the police forced Newt Lee to panto-
mime exactly how he had discovered the body. Despite a
thorough search of the basement by police that morning
Mary's silver mesh handbag, which held a few dollars, was
missing and never found.

It was noted that the rear door leading from the basement
to a generally unfrequented alleyway had been forced open
from the inside. The staple, which held the lock in place,
had been pried off with an iron bar and there were several
bloody fingermarks that had been made in pushing the
sliding door back. After an investigation at the murder
scene by members of Coroner Paul Donehoo's staff, the
body was removed to P. J. Bloomfield's undertaker establish-
ment on South Pryor Street.

This apparent murder was not the first tragedy that had
taken place inside the dark walls of the ancient Venable
Building, then occupied by the National Pencil Factory.
Older citizens of Atlanta recalled a serious fire there, when
the building had been used as a livery stable. A gentleman
by the name of Pettigrew and one of his rescuers died firom
their burns, and Pettigrew's money had been stolen, pre-
sumably during the rescue attempt. Besides the fire, at least
a half dozen fatal shootings had occurred within fifty yards
of the building.

Later there was some newspaper speculation that this
murder might join the ranks of Atlanta's unsolved crimes.
For example, the dead body of Miss Sophie Kloecker 'Svas
found floating in the lake at Lakewood park on May 24,
1904. ... So mystifying was the affair that the coroner held
two inquests with two separate juries, a thing that had never
been done before" in Atlanta. Another unsolved case was
that of Mrs. Mary Lilly, who had been strangled to death
with a pair of tongs on May 12, 1906.

THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

*

Saturday, April 26, 1913, was overcast and gloomy, but
the weather did not dampen the holiday atmosphere in
Atlanta. It was Confederate Memorial Day, a holiday tradi-
tion that began in 1866, and almost everybody went to the
parades downtown. And there was also an opera and the
baseball game between the Atlanta Crackers and the Bir-
mingham Barons of the Southern League. Throughout the
South, Memorial Day commemorated the War Between the
States and the veterans of Robert E. Lee. A festive spirit
ran high. School children in Atlanta marched in the big
parade along with the Seventeenth Regiment and its band.
Proud, battle-scarred veterans of Lee's army marched too.

The Atlanta Crackers ball club, organized in 1901, was
headed by three well-known Atlantans, including a lawyer
and a manufacturer. In 1907 and 1909, William A. "Billy"
Smith had managed the fledgling club to Southern League
pennants; and at the beginning of the 1913 baseball season,
the league imposed a limit of $300 per month on players'
salaries and strongly encouraged managers to develop the
younger players.

The spirit of the War Between the States was very much
alive in the hearts of many Atlantans. It still is, in the South.
Georgia had been the fourth state to secede from the Union
on January 19, 1861. Lincoln had been burned in effigy in
Atlanta the December before. The Gate City served as the
major supply and distribution center for the Confederacy
of Jefferson Davis. On November 14 and 15, 1864, the
Union army of General William Tecumseh Sherman set fire
to Atlanta as it left for its "march to the sea." The devasta-
tion was so complete that only four hundred structures
remained standing when Sherman's troops left. In the
decades that followed, Atlanta built itself from the ashes of
indignation and defeat to become the flower of the South.
A new city seal, "Resurgens Atlanta," was adopted in 1887.
It depicts a phoenix rising from the flames of Sherman's

The Murder 5

destruction. In July 1898, General John B. Gordon led a
reunion of thirty thousand Confederate veterans in the
"Gate City of the South."

On that Saturday morning in 1913, Mary Phagan, wear-
ing a lavender dress with white lace trim and a fine blue hat
with flowers, took a streetcar into town from her home in
the Bellwood (Bankhead) suburb of the city. She was on
her way to the National Pencil Factory to collect her pay
and then to watch the Memorial Day parade. Mary, who
was about one month away from her fourteenth birthday,
worked in the "metal" room on the second floor of the
factory. She was among the hundred or so young girls and
women who worked for the pencil company. Her job was
to put erasers into the metal holders on the pencils. The
National Pencil Factory manufactured lead pencils known
as "Magnolias" and "Jeffersons."

That same day, a meeting of fifteen hundred sociological
workers was held in the Auditorium in Atlanta. The agenda
of this Southern Sociological Congress* included an attack
on child labor. The Phagan girl worked for about twelve
cents an hour at the National Pencil Factory. This was not
unusual: many factories in the South and all over America
employed children at low wages in the early years of this
century.

The English Avenue streetcar picked Mary up near her
house at 146 Lindsay Street at about 11:50 that Saturday
morning. Factory employees were usually paid at noon on
Saturdays, but this Saturday, being a holiday, notices had
been posted that pay envelopes would be available on Friday
evening. Mary did not know that her pay of $1.20 had been
ready on Friday. She had not been able to work for several
days because the shipment of metal to be used for the pencil
tips had not arrived.

Leo Frank, the superintendent of the National Pencil
Company, was at the factory that Saturday preparing the
weekly financial report. He had planned to go to the
Cracker ballgame in the afternoon, but the threat of rain

6 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

kept him inside. When Mary Phagan entered Mr. Frank's
office on the second floor of the factory at around noon,
she asked him for her pay envelope. Neither knowing her
name nor asking for it, Frank simply requested her em-
ployee number. He went to the cash box and handed the
envelope to the girl. Mary asked Mr. Frank if the metal for
the pencils had come in yet. He told her "no."

Although many claimed to have thought they saw her,
no one ever testified to seeing Mary Phagan alive after she
left Leo Frank's office that Saturday.

When Mary did not return home that Saturday evening,
her mother and stepfather became worried. She had never
been known to stay away at night. Police headquarters were
notified and a lookout notice was put on the biilletin board.
At daybreak on Sunday morning, a messenger came to the
Coleman house to let them know that Mary had been found
dead in the pencil factory. Fannie Coleman, the girPs
mother, fainted and did not recover for about an hour.
Then she required constant attention by a physician.

Mary Phagan was born on June 1, 1900, in Marietta^
Georgia, to John and Frances Phagan — at least that is the
date that appears on the girl's tombstone. However, her
mother testified that she was one month away from her
fourteenth birthday. This would put the year of her birth at
1899. The family later moved from Marietta to Bellwood,
near Atlanta, and John and the children worked for the
Bellwood Mill. John Phagan died in 191 1. Within one year,
Mrs. Phagan married another millworker named J. William
Coleman, and by May of 1913 he was working for the
Sanitary Department for the City of Adanta. The family
included two girls, Mary and Ollie, and three boys, Ben,
Joshua, and Charlie. Ollie Mae Phagan was eighteen when
her sister died. She worked as a salesgirl at Rich Brothers
store. Ben Phagan was a sailor onboard the U.S.S. Franklin
at the time of his sister's death.

Mary was considered the prettiest girl in the neighbor-
hood and was liked by everyone who knew her. She had

The Murder 7

been cast as "Sleeping Beauty" on the Christmas Eve before
her death in a play put on by her church, the First Christian
Church, near Atlanta. She was also a member of Pastor L.
O. Bricker's Bible School. As far as her parents knew, Mary
was not in love with anyone. They did not allow her to have
sweethearts or to receive male callers at the house. She was
said to be a "model girl" — bright, eager, and cheerful.

With the discovery of Mary Phagan's body that Sunday
morning in April, a public delirium began in Adanta that
continued for more than two years. Almost six thousand
people, including family, friends, and curious spectators,
visited Bloomfield's to see the murdered girl's corpse. Police
said it was the largest crowd ever to view a murder victim's
body in the City of Atlanta.

W. J. Phagan, Mary's grandfather, declared that "the
living God will see to it that the brute is found and
punished according to his sin." Grandfather Phagan was
terribly disturbed by Mary's death and there was some
concern that his health would not permit his attending the
funeral. W. J. Phagan died the following year at the age of
sixty.

Four men were under arrest by Monday evening. One
was Newt Lee, the nightwatchman. The other three men
arrested were John M. Gantt, Arthur MuUinax, and Gordon
Bailey. Gantt was a former timekeeper and chief clerk at the
National Pencil Company. A cash shortage had been discov-
ered which Gantt was unwilling to make right and he was
discharged on April 7. Gantt later testified that he knew
Mary Phagan prior to her employment at the factory.
Mullinax was a streetcar conductor in Adanta; Bailey, a
black man, was an elevator operator at the pencil factory.

Following his arrest as he stepped off a streetcar in
Marietta, Gantt admitted that he knew the murdered girl
and was in the factory on Saturday to collect a pair of shoes
he had left behind when he had been discharged. Superin-
tendent Leo Frank corroborated Gantt's story about going
to the factory about 6:00 P.M. to retrieve his shoes.

8 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Detectives had evidence that Mullinax, who worked as a
substitute conductor on the English Avenue streetcar, was
well acquainted with Mary Phagan. They were often seen
talking to one another on the girl's ride from home to the
pencil factory. Mullinax was twenty-eight years old.

Leo Frank was also questioned by police on the Monday
morning after the murder, but not placed under arrest. He
returned home at noon. Attorneys Luther Z. Rosser Sr. and
Herbert Haas represented Frank during the questioning.
(The name Haas is a very old Jewish name in Adanta,
appearing in records as early as 1847.)

Because of the unrest among the female employees at the
pencil factory, the company was closed for business that
Monday. The same day, a jury impaneled by the coroner
and accompanied by three or four policemen, searched the
dark basement of the pencil factory for incriminating evi-
dence. The machine room on the second floor was also
examined. Several strands of blond hair were found clinging
to a lathe and there were tiny blood stains on the floor. The
machine room was close to the office of Leo Frank.

City detectives were puzzled by the two notes written in
lead pencil found near the Phagan girl's body. One note
read: "He said he wood love me land down like the night
witch did it but that long tall black negro did buy his slef."
The other said: "mam that negro hire down here did this i
went to make water and he push me down that hole a long
tall negro black that hoo it wase long sleam tall negro i
Wright while play with me."

On Monday evening Leo Frank hired the Pinkerton
Detective Agency in Adanta to assist the police in solving
the murder at his factory. That same night John Gantt was
put through a grueling third-degree interrogation at the
police station in an attempt to wring a confession from his
lips. But Gantt maintained he was innocent.

Tuesday morning's Atlanta Constitution carried the an-
nouncement of a reward on page one. One thousand dollars
was to be paid to those people providing information

The Murder 9

justifying the arrest and leading to the conviction of the
murderer or murderers of Mary Phagan. That same morn-
ing, Mary Phagan's funeral party arrived at the Citizens'
Cemetery in Marietta. Hundreds of men and women and
boys and girls followed the train of carriages with the white
coffin to the Second Baptist Church. The choir sang "Rock
of Ages," which was frequendy interspersed with the sobs
of Fannie Coleman. Reverend Linkous prayed for the police
of Adanta. He asked the gatherers not to hold too much
rancor in their hearts for the "imp of satan" who had killed
the litde girl. Mary's aunt. Miss Lizzie Phagan, fainted and
had to be carried from the small country church.

When Dr. Linkous finished, the casket was opened one
last time. One of the members of the congregation, a
sunburned farmer, growled that "the nigger [Newt Lee]
knows all about it." "If we had that scoundrel in Marietta,
we'd know how to get him to talk. We'd make him be
polite."

When the first shovelful of earth was thrown into the
grave, Mrs. Coleman broke down completely. "She was
taken away when the spring was coming — the spring that
was so like her. Oh and she wanted to see the spring. She
loved it — it loved her."

"Goodby, Mary, . . . Goodby. It's too big a hole to put
you in, though. It's so big — b-i-g, and you were so litde —
my own litde Mary!"

At least, that was the way the Atlanta Constitution re-
ported the funeral on April 30th. The front page had a
photograph of the flower-strewn gravesite. A cross had been
drawn along the bottom edge of the picture. Later, the
Marietta Camp No. 763 of the United Confederate \feterans
ereaed a marker at the head of the litde girl's final resting
place.

Citizens' Cemetery in Marietta lies adjacent to Confeder-
ate Cemetery. Mary's grave is now surrounded by other
members of the Phagan family — her sister Ollie (who died
at the age of sixty-eight in 1963), her aunt Lizzie (who

10 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

died at the age of sixty-three in 1949), her mother (who
died at the age of seventy-three in 1947), and her grandfa-
ther. Mrs. Coleman's tombstone is engraved with the words
"Mother of Mary Phagan." Mary's stepfather is buried in
College Park, Georgia.

A marble slab about six feet long covers Mary's grave. On
it are inscribed these haunting words:

IN THIS DAY OF FADING IDEALS AND DISAPPEAR-
ING LAND MARKS, LrXTLE MARY PHAGAN'S HER-
OISM IS AN HEIRLOOM THAN WHICH THERE IS
NOTHING MORE PRECIOUS AMONG THE OLD
RED HILLS OF GEORGL\.

SLEEP, LriTLE GIRL; SLEEP IN YOUR HUMBLE
GRAVE BUT IF THE ANGELS ARE GOOD TO YOU
IN THE REALMS BEYOND THE TROUBLE [sic] SUN-
SET AND THE CLOUDED STARS, THEY WILL LET
YOU KNOW THAT MANY AN ACHING HEART IN
GEORGIA BEATS FOR YOU, AND MANY A TEAR,
FROM EYES UNUSED TO WEEP, HAS PAID YOU A
TRIBUTE TOO SACRED FOR WORDS.

*
**

While Marietta mourned the loss of the beloved child,
the police investigation continued. Every lead was followed,
including the possibility that Mary Phagan had been the
victim of white slave traders. New evidence emerged against
nightwatchman Newt Lee. During each night of his duty at
the pencil factory, he was supposed to punch the timepiece
every thirty minutes. On the Saturday night of the murder,
Lee had punched the clock every half-hour up until 9:32
PM. Then, between 9:30 that evening and 3:00 A.M.
Sunday, there were three irregularities in the punch tape of
the timeclock, which showed that Lee did not punch in
every half-hour as he was supposed to have done. Of special
interest was the fact that Lee failed to punch the time-
piece between two and three o'clock Sunday morning, the

The Murder 11

immediate time before which Mary Phagan's body was
reportedly discovered. In addition, police foimd a blood-
soaked shirt at Newt Lee's home on Hendrix Avenue in
Atlanta. The watchman claimed not to have seen that shirt
for two years.

Aroimd noon on Tuesday, April 29, Leo Frank was
working in the offices of the pencil company. Obviously the
murder of an employee in the factory weighed heavily in his
thoughts. Suddenly, Detectives Starnes and Black of the
Atlanta police department appeared at his office and ar-
rested Frank. He submitted to the officers willingly — and it
would be the last day he would ever work at the factory. He
could hardly have imagined the whirlwind of events soon
to unfold.

That same afternoon, Frank and Lee were given the third
degree at police headquarters by various officials, including
Chief Newport Lanford, Chief James Beavers, and Pinker-
ton Detective Scott. They were interrogated at the same
time in the same room on the third floor of the station, and
at one point, they were left alone in the hope that Frank
would be able to extract more information from Lee. He
failed.

Chief Beavers had a checkered career with the Atlanta
police department. He assumed the position of police chief
on August 11, 1911, but resigned four years later rather
than be demoted for official incompetence. In November
1917, he was reinstated as police chief after charges against
him were dropped. In 1923, he was suspended from the
force by the i^anta mayor, only to return triumphantly to
power in early 1927.

During questioning, Leo Frank admitted that he had
been alone in the factory between 4:00 and 6:00 P.M. on
Saturday, working on the office books and reports. How-
ever, throughout that Memorial Day several people were in
and out of the factory. Two mechanics, Harry Denham and
John Arthur White, were working on the fourth floor of
the building until about four o'clock that afternoon. The

12 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

daytime watchman was there, in addition to N. V. Darley,
an assistant superintendent, and Hattie Hall, a stenographer
who had helped Frank with paperwork in the morning. Mr.
Darley was manager of the Georgia Cedar Company, a
branch of the National Pencil Company. Another person
who came to the factory that Memorial Day was Mrs. J. A.
White. She brought her husband's lunch.

Questioning further revealed that Newt Lee arrived for
work around 4:00 P.M. that Saturday, but because Frank
had decided not to go to the ballgame and because it was a
holiday, Lee was given permission to leave until 6:00 P.M.
At six o'clock, Lee came back to the factory and John Gantt
arrived at about the same time to pick up his shoes. Frank
allowed Gantt to enter the factory but referred him to the
nightwatchman.

Frank said he went directly home, arriving at about 6:30
P.M. He stayed there until he was called by Detective
Stames at six o'clock Sunday morning, when he was in-
formed of the murder at the factory. The detective picked
Frank up from the home of his in-laws at 68 East Georgia
Avenue, where he and his wife resided, and then drove to
the pencil company building at 37-41 South Forsyth
Street.

During Frank's examination, his attorney, Luther Rosser,
attempted to gain entrance to the interrogation room on
the third floor of the police station. Access was denied. The
stairway to the third floor was guarded by one Officer West.
Later, Rosser and Chief Beavers argued heatedly about the
lawyer's not being allowed into the room with his client.

By Tuesday evening, the day of the funeral, a charge of
suspicion of murder was entered against Leo Frank.

Endnotes

L Many local delegates to this Congress were Jewish. In a major
address to the convention the president of Furman University (Green-
ville, South Carolina) launched a vituperative attack against Jews and
Catholics, claiming Jews had failed in their stewardship.

THE INDICTMENT

A major piece in the Mary Phagan puzzle was the ques-
tion of whether the young girl ever left the pencil
factory after she received her pay on Memorial Day. One
man, Edgar Sentell, insisted that he had seen the girl at
about midnight Saturday in the company of a man who
looked like Arthur Mullinax. Police were not convinced of
Sentell's story.

The two illiterate notes discovered beside Mary Phagan's
battered body also remained a mystery. Police asked all the
suspects, including Leo Frank, to write the same words that
were on the two notes. One thing was certain — ^Mary
Phagan had not written the notes. First, her penmanship
and punctuation were proper. Second, even if she had been
alive in the basement of the faaory, it was almost pitch
dark and therefore impossible to find paper and pencil and
scratch out two notes, though to be sure there were pencil
stubs lying all around the basement. It was, after all, a
factory that manufactured lead pencils. Finally, the notes
were written on Wo different types of pencil-company
paper. Three handwriting experts commissioned by the
Atlanta Journal were of the opinion that Newt Lee had
written the notes.

The Journal^ the only one of the three big Atlanta daily

13

14 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

papers that did not sensationalize the case, tried to steer a
middle-of-the-road course in its reporting of the crime and
the ensuing trial. In late April 1913, Atlanta businessmen
protested the many sensational "extras" issued by the city's
newspapers. The merchants felt the unwarranted sensa-
tional reporting was hurting business and that the commu-
nity was being aroused to a dangerous degree.

It seemed everyone in and around Atlanta and Marietta
had an opinion about the murder. The police responded to
hundreds of calls and "tips." Family members also had their
theories: J. W. Coleman, the dead girl's stepfather, believed
that Newt Lee had killed her. According to his theory,
Mary had been bound and gagged from about noon on
Saturday imtil such time as Lee could assault and murder
her when no one was at the factory.

The coroner's inquest began shordy after nine o'clock on
Wednesday, April 30th. The panel hearing the testimony
consisted of H. Ashford, Glenn Dewberry, J. Hood, C.
Langford, John Miller, and C. Sheats. The testimony of the
witnesses was less than conclusive. In this first closed-door
session. Newt Lee testified that he found the body face up
in the basement. The police who answered the call that
Simday morning had found the girl's body face down.
When Lee called the police station to report the murder, he
said he had discovered a young white woman's body in the
basement. The police, on the other hand, had had great
difficulty telling whether the dead girl was black or white.
The differences in these stories were perplexing.

Lee also said Leo Frank called him on the telephone
between 7:00 and 8:00 EM. that Saturday night to ask if
everything was all right. According to the nightwatchman,
Frank had never called him from home before, which was
probably not significant because Newt Lee had only worked
at the pencil factory for three weeks and would have had no
adequate knowledge of what normal procedure really was.
W. F. Anderson, the officer who had taken Lee's call on

The Indictment 1 5

Sxinday morning, testified before the panel that the cord
around Mary Phagan's neck was six or seven feet long.

The night before the coroner's inquest, a young white
man named Walter Graham smuggled a derringer revolver
into a cell next to Newt Lee's at police headquarters.
Tuesday night the weapon was fired and Lee was said to be
very frightened for his life. Detectives questioned him about
the Phagan murder shortiy after the incident, but he did
not change his story.

On the same day of the inquest, the City Council of
Arianta appropriated one thousand dollars for information
leading to the arrest of the murderer or murderers.

One theory was that Mary had actually been drugged and
the cord around her neck was a decoy. Another theory,
pursued by the police, was that the murderer had planned
to bum his victim in the factory ftimace on Sunday morn-
ing. And Coroner Paul Donehoo decided to exhume the
body of Mary Phagan to examine the contents of her
stomach. Nine days after burial, her body was lifted from
the grave and undigested cabbage and bread were removed
from her stomach.

At two o'clock Thursday afternoon, a sixth arrest was
made in the Phagan case. James Conley, a black sweeper at
the National Pencil Factory, was seen washing out a shirt at
a faucet behind that building. Police detectives were sum-
moned because there were marks on the shirt resembling
blood. Conley claimed they were rust stains, but the police
held him until a chemical analysis could be made to deter-
mine whether the stains were in fact blood.

Late that same afternoon, Leo Frank and Newt Lee were
transferred to the Fulton County jail from police headquar-
ters on the basis of coroner's warrants; J. M. Gantt and
Arthur Mullinax were released from police custody. The
city detectives, the coroner, and Solicitor Dorsey all focused
on building evidence to support their contention that Mary
Phagan never left the pencil factory the Saturday she was
killed.

16 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

At this point, Leo Frank was not a prime suspect in the
case. The police detained him chiefly because they felt that
he could supply valuable information leading to the killer.

Saturday, May 3rd, was a pretty day in Atlanta. The first
hot spell of the year was forcing an early appearance of the
straw hat and peek-a-boo waist. Famed bandmaster John
Philip Sousa was in town for the Brookhaven Gun Club
shoot. Sousa had one of the finest collections of guns in the
world. During an interview the bandmaster was asked by a
reporter what his idea of heaven was. "A horse, a dog, a
gun, and a girl!", Sousa replied. As to why the girl was
named last, he said that "they don't take to you like the
horse or the dog."

Although Frank had not been charged with anything,
support for the young Atlanta Jew was already beginning
to build. The men of Gate City Lodge 144 of B'nai B'rith
in Atlanta honored their fellow lodge member with the
prestigious rank of president. In a letter published in the
Atlanta Journal^ Milton Klein offered strong evidence in
support of Mr. Frank's character and good works. Frank,
said Klein, was "the most polished of gentlemen, with the
kindest of heart and the broadest of sympathy." Mr. Klein,
also a member of the same B'nai B'rith lodge, pointed to
Frank's great work with the employees of his factory.

Meanwhile, if the Mary Phagan murder went imsolved,
it would not be for lack of effort. Moses Frank, Leo Frank's
imcle, returned to Atlanta the first week in May to help
establish the innocence of his nephew. Leo's uncle had been
about to leave on a trip for Europe, but he changed his
plans on his nephew's behalf. Solicitor General Hugh M.
Dorsey of the Atlanta Circuit, the man who would later
serve as prosecutor in the Frank trial, began an independent
probe of the Phagan murder in early May. This was in
addition to the ongoing investigations of the Atlanta city
detectives and the Pinkertons employed by the National
Pencil Company. And a number of private citizens who
lived near the Coleman residence employed the well-known

The Indictment 1 7

Atlanta attorney Colonel Thomas B. Felder, who would
provide assistance to the prosecution in the case.

On May 5, a young man was arrested in Houston, Texas,
on suspicion of murder in the Phagan killing. Paul Beniston
Bowen checked into the St. Jean Hotel on Sunday evening.
May 4th, and occupied a room adjacent to Mrs. A. Blan-
ched:. The woman told the police that Bowen's action had
aroused her suspicions. She claimed she heard him say,
'Why did I do it? If I could just live it over again I would
not do it."

In Bowen's belongings police found letters with Adanta
postmarks and signed "Mary*' or "M. P." There were also a
blood-stained woman's vest, copies of Adanta newspapers,
and photographs identified as that of the murdered girl. In
all, pictures of more than fifty girls were discovered in the
young man's trunk. Tsvo days later, Bowen was released for
lack of evidence.

The body of Mary Phagan, which had been exhumed
once under the direction of Coroner Donehoo, was re-
moved from the grave yet a second time. The principal
reason for the second exhumation was to cut some hair
firom the girPs head to compare with the hair found on the
lathe in the "metal room" of the pencil factory.

A notable protest was lodged by the consul of Greece in
Adanta. Demetre Vafiada called xhcjoumid to object to the
insinuation that the cord around Mary Phagan's neck had
been tied by a Greek simply because it had been fashioned
in a particular way. About a hundred Atlanta Greeks had
gathered the night before on Whitehall Street to protest
the newspaper's headline, which linked a Greek to the
murder on the basis of the knot tied around the girl's neck.

The Phagan inquest was resumed on Thursday, May 8.
Testimony was heard firom "Boots" Rogers, a former county
policeman, who had gone with the Adanta police in re-
sponse to Newt Lee's call. It was Rogers' relative. Miss
Grace Hicks, who identified the body.

Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee of the pencil factory.

18 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

declared that Mr. Frank's conduct toward the female em-
ployees was irreproachable.

"You never saw him display any undue familiarity toward
any of them, did you?"

"No, sir."

"Did you ever see him chuck any of them under the chin,
or try to kiss them?"

"No, sir!"

City bacteriologist and chemist Dr. Claude Smith re-
ported the stains on Newt Lee's shirt were "probably
human blood". The state-of-the art for forensic medicine in
1913 was obviously still developing. Today's analytical tech-
niques could not only determine that a substance was
human blood but what the blood type was. Also, the hair
found in the second floor "metal room" where police
suspected the murder had occurred could have been posi-
tively identified by today*s methods. But the best testimony
by friends and co-workers of the dead girl was that the hair
discovered "looked like" Mary Phagan's hair.

The coroner questioned Lemmie A. Quinn, Mary Pha-
gan's foreman in the metal department at the factory.
Quinn had gone to the factory that Saturday to see Mr.
SchifFto talk baseball with him. Quinn testified that he had
spoken with Mr. Frank between 12:20 and 12:30 that
afternoon.

Leo Frank, Newt Lee, some of the detectives, and several
character witnesses were also called before the coroner on
this final day of the inquest. At 6:30 Thursday evening, May
8, the Mary Phagan murder inquest drew to a close. Deputy
Plennie Minor carried the news of the coroner's jury's
verdict to Frank and Newt Lee. Leo Frank was in the
hallway of the Tower, reading an afternoon newspaper. The
deputy approached him and said the jury had ordered that
he and Lee be held for an investigation by the grand jury!
Newt Lee hung his head dejectedly when he heard the
verdict. Leo Frank replied that it was no more than he
expected.

The Indictment 19

*

Who was Leo Frank; and what was the nature of Atlanta's
Jewish community in 1913? Generally Atlantans did not
know him at all. He was not a politician or a social
trendsetter. As a result, numerous rumors were circulated
about his character, which the average man on the street
could neither prove nor disprove. One rumor, persistendy
passed in various forms, was that Frank had been married
to a woman in Brooklyn, New York. At the request of the
Atlanta Journal^ the Brooklyn Eagle investigated the rumor
and found it to be untrue. No record in Brooklyn showed
that Frank had ever married there.

Leo Max Frank was born in Cuero, Texas, on April 17,
1884. The litde town (also called Paris) lies within a hun-
dred miles of San Antonio. He was the son of Rae and
Rudolph Frank. When Leo was several months old, the
family moved to Brooklyn. His father, who was 67 in 1913,
was a traveling salesman. Leo attended the public schools
and Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick
was principal of the Pratt Institute when Leo was a student
there and Miss Annie Carroll Moore was the librarian. She
wrote to The New lork Times in 1914 describing the good
impression young Leo had made upon her while under her
observation. Mrs. Elizabeth H. Spalding, Frank's English
teacher at Pratt Institute, also wrote to the Times^ lauding
his "rare thoughtfulness, good judgment, and straightfor-
ward manliness."

Leo entered Cornell University in Ithaca, New Ifork, in
the fall semester of 1902. During his academic career there,
he was a member of the Cornell Congress and participated
in the H. Morse Stephens debate. Frank, who was a me-
chanical engineering major, played basketball for four years
on his class team. The 1906 yearbook also said that he was
a member of the Cornell Society of Mechanical Engineering
(CSME).

Leo Frank was a thin young man who wore thick.

20 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

wire-rimmed glasses. He weighed only between 125 and
130 pounds and in many photographs he looked fright-
ened, nervous, and frail. He had the habit of smoking cigars
and enjoyed the game of bridge.

Following his graduation from Cornell in June 1906, he
accepted a position as a draftsman with B. F. Sturtevant
[Sturdivant] Company of High Park, Massachusetts. Six
months later he became a testing engineer and draftsman
for the National Meter Company of Brooklyn. Beginning
in December 1907, Frank spent nine months in Europe in
apprenticeship under the renowned German manufacturer
Eberhard Faber, whose name appears to this day on pencils,
pens, and erasers. It was Faber who built the first U.S.
pencil factory in 1861. He was the last in a family of lead
pencil manufacturers dating back to Kasper Faber, who
died in 1784.

When Leo returned to America in August 1908, he went
to Atlanta to learn and supervise the Frank family's pencil
business there. In October, 1910, he married Miss Lucille
Selig, daughter of a prominent Jewish family in Atlanta.
Emil Selig, Lucille's father, was a salesman. He and his wife
Josephine had three daughters. Rabbi David Marx's Temple
and the Standard Club in Atlanta counted Leo Frank
among their members.

Despite the fact that he was born in Texas, Leo Frank was
perceived as a northerner, a Yankee Jewish industrialist. It
may be conjectured that Mary Phagan was the latest victim
of Yankee "blue-bellied" aggression, which could explain
the Confederate marker on her grave.

The original group of Jews who came to North America
had, of course, met opposition, namely, from the authori-
ties of Dutch New Amsterdam. Arriving from Dutch Recife
in 1654, following capture of that town by the Portuguese,
this small band of Jews was allowed to stay in New Amster-
dam only after it petitioned the Dutch East India Company
in Holland. The first group of Jews to arrive in the south-
ern colonies landed in Georgia in 1733. They, too, met

The Indictment 2 1

opposition, although Governor James Oglethorpe granted
them privilege to stay.

The first Jews came to the rough railroading town of
Marthas ville (later called Atlanta), Georgia, in the mid-
1840s. Two Jewish men were known to be among the
contributors to a Christian religious school established
there in 1847. The land on which Atlanta now stands was
once Creek and Cherokee Indian territory. Atlanta's first
permanent white setder was a man named Hardy Ivy, who
built his homestead there in the spring of 1833. Within ten
years, the tiny town of Terminus was officially designated
the southeastern end of the Wfestern and Atlantic Railroad
tracks. Terminus had thirty people and six buildings then.
The first business firm was Johnson & Thrasher.

Terminus began to be called Marthasville in the early
1840s, in honor of the daughter of the governor of Geor-
gia. By the end of 1843, Terminus was renamed Marthas-
ville. In a litde over a year, the townspeople began to call it
Atlanta, and that became the official name in December
1845. Five years later, the city's population was estimated
to be twenty-five hundred strong with nearly five hundred
slaves. Atlanta became the seat of newly established Fulton
Coimty in late 1853. Gas lamps lit the streets of the town
by the middle of the decade.

The "Gate City of the South," as Atlanta became known
in the latter 1850s, heard Stephen A. Douglas speak there
just before the start of the war. Douglas defended the
integrity of the Union. By that time, Atlanta had over
ninety-five hundred inhabitants. After General Lee's surren-
der at Appomattox, the population of Atlanta has been
described as primarily Confederate war widows.

Following the carnage of the Civil War, the State of
Georgia actively sought foreign setders to bolster its labor
supply. This official recruitment program, spurred by the
emancipation of blacks from slavery, was not supported by
most native Georgians. Jews started to enter the South in
large numbers only after the end of the Civil War in 1865,

22 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

and by 1875, the Jewish community in Adanta numbered
about six hundred people.

Despite Georgia's call for foreign labor and the influx of
Jews and other groups into the state, the South in general
had fewer immigrants than other regions of the country.
The majority of the native whites of the South during the
early decades of the twentieth century were of Scotch-Irish
descent, whose forebears came to America in two great
waves during the 1700s. The main sources of the popula-
tion of Georgia were England, Scotland, and Ireland. Con-
formity to tradition and local mores was held in high esteem
in the southern consciousness, in contrast to that of the
cities of the North and the western frontiers, where differ-
ences were commonplace due to the ethnic mixtures.

The majority of Jews who came to Georgia before 1880
were of German origin. They did not experience the full
impact of the native American culture because of their
relatively small numbers, cultural orientation, and tendency
to assimilate into the general southern way of life. The
German Jewish community in Atlanta worked extremely
hard to create an atmosphere of good will with the rest of
the city's inhabitants. Professional partnerships frequently
included Jews as well as Gentiles. Arthur Heyman, a Jewish
attorney, was a partner in the law firm of Dorsey, Brewster,
Howell and Heyman. The prosecutor in Frank's trial was
the "Dorsey." In addition, twelve Jews were elected or
appointed to office in Atlanta between 1873 and 1911.
This was significant political representation for a group that
never was more than three per cent of the total population.
Even after the Frank case had played to its tragic climax,
Victor Kriegshaber, a German Jew, was elected president of
the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, in 1916.

By 1913, the Atlanta Jewish community was the largest
in the South, with slightly more than five thousand Jews
when the city had a total population of around 175,000.
The cornerstone of the house of worship for Rabbi David
Marx's Hebrew Benevolent Congregation (later Temple)

The Indictment 23

had been laid in place on May 14, 1875. Dedication of the
building came two years later. The Congregation itself had
been organized in June 1867.

Social and political conditions in Russia from 1881-
1917 were to have profound effects upon Rabbi Marx's
small German Jewish community in Adanta. During the
reigns of Alexander III through Nicholas II, there was a
dramatic shift in czarist Jewish policy away from amalga-
mation and "Russification" to a program of physical vio-
lence (pogroms) and severe economic restrictions. The
infamous May Laws of 1882, the expulsion of the Jews of
Moscow in 1891, the savage and devastating Kishinev (Bes-
sarabia) pogroms of 1903-05, and the Beilis affair stand
within the broad sweep of government-sanctioned anti-
Jewish action of those thirty-six years.

As a result of these and other pressures, the Jews of
Russia and Eastern Europe emigrated to the United States
in large numbers beginning in the 1880s and continuing
through the First World War. This, of course, was prior to
the legislation restricting immigration into the United
States, which was enacted during the first five years of the
1920s.

By 1910, the 1,200 East European Jews of Atianta were
the largest foreign-born group in the city. These Russian
Jews ghettoized themselves near the center of Atianta and
were very visible to the general public. Anti- Jewish social
discrimination in Atianta coincided with the arrival of the
Russian Jews; and the exclusion of the West European
leadership from the elite clubs was the first significant
instance of discrimination.

From time to time in Atlanta's history, the prohibition
of liquor was a very heated political issue, particularly
during the mayoral race of 1888. Twenty years later prohi-
bition went into effect in the city following a statewide
referendum. A sizable percentage of the city's saloons were
owned by Russian Jews and saloons, vice, and crime were
all deplored alike in the public mind. As a result, the

24 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Russian saloonkeepers were held in contempt by large
segments of Atlanta's population.

Although the public originally distinguished between the
new Russian immigrants and the established West European
Jews, after 1900 the differentiation nearly vanished in pop-
ular thought. A Jew was, in effect, a Jew. There seems to
have been a direct correlation between discrimination and
the degree to which the Jewish community disturbed the
existing social structure in Adanta.

Adanta's Jews were very civic-minded. The Hebrew Or-
phan's Home, for example, was established in 1889 to care
for the Jewish orphans of the southeastern states. Jewish
involvement in the general life of the city included work
with the Robert E. Lee Fire Co. No. 4, the erection and
repair of several local churches (Christians responded in
kind), participation in a program to help the poor at
Christmastime, and contribution to the construction of a
juvenile reformatory in 1894. Money was raised during the
Spanish- American War to aid wounded soldiers hospitalized
near Adanta and support was given to build a Presbyterian
university in the city. Rabbi Marx campaigned for free
kindergartens and playgrounds. Jews supported the YMCA
and Boys Club too, but the greatest monument to their
public philanthropy was the Henry Grady Memorial Hos-
pital.

It is noteworthy, however, that fraternal lodges such as
the Elks, the Shrine, and the Free and Accepted Masons
provided the "only sphere of local associational life in which
large numbers of Jews and Gentiles could mix comfortably.''
The points of contact between the Jewish and Gentile
commimities of Adanta were primarily between the elite of
both communities.

The general Jewish experience in America through the
end of the nineteenth century was marked to a large degree
by tolerance, at least officially and publicly. To be sure,
there had been the occasional exception: General Grant's
Order Number 1 1, the denial of accommodations to Jewish

The Indictment 25

banker Joseph Seligman at the Grand Union Hotel in
Saratoga, New York, and the pamphlet entitled The Jew at
Home written by Joseph Pennell. General Grant's Order,
issued in December, 1862, during the Civil War, is a rare
instance in American Jewish experience of official anti-
Semitism sponsored by an arm of the United States govern-
ment. The Order called for the evacuation of all Jews living
in the Tennessee Department. Behind this Order was the
severe cotton shortage in the North along with a critical
lack of certain medical goods. At the same time there was a
surplus of raw cotton in the South and Jews were viewed as
reaping a benefit trading between the North and the South.
They were ordered to evacuate the area in which this trading
could occur.

Another incidence of anti- Jewish action in America took
place in Thomasville, Georgia, in August 1862, during a
time of fear and economic pressure. A group of prominent
citizens "passed a series of resolutions by which the resident
Jews were given ten days' notice of expulsion, Jewish ped-
dlers were prohibited from entering Thomas County, and a
Committee of Public Safety was appointed with the respon-
sibility of enforcing the resolutions." The proceedings of
the meeting which produced these resolutions were pub-
lished in the Thomasville Weekly Times^ evoking protests
from Jews in other parts of Georgia. The role of Confeder-
ate Jewish soldiers in protesting the attempted expulsion
was particularly conspicuous. Historian Louis Schmeir
notes that "Though the controversy died out quickly as the
Confederate government took steps against the counterfeit-
ers and provided for the defense of South Georgia, the
town of Thomasville would continue to bear the stigma of
anti-Semitism well into the twentieth century."

*

"Leo M. Frank did murder, in that in the county afore-
said (Fulton), state of Georgia, on the 26th of April, in the

26 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

year of our Lord 1913, with force of arms he did unlawfully
and with malice aforethought kill and murder one Mary
Phagan by then and there choking her, said Mary Phagan,
with a cord that he placed around her neck."

Such was the true bill issued by the grand jury in the
Phagan murder case on Friday, May 23, 1913. Leo Frank
would have to stand trial for the girPs murder. He had
become the prime suspect, although Newt Lee was still held
at the Tower on a suspicion warrant for the grand jury.

That Saturday morning Jim Conley, the black sweeper
jailed as a material witness for the state, claimed in an
affidavit that Leo Frank had him write the two notes found
near Mary Phagan's body. Conley maintained Frank had
directed him to write the notes the Friday before the
murder.

Jim Conley could write. Notes to his girlfriend Annie
Maud Carter are still preserved in the Georgia Department
of Archives and History in Atlanta. Conley's letters, fre-
quently addressed to "Baby doll" or "My dear litde girl,"
contain vulgar and intimate language. Originally, however,
Conley had declared that he could not write.

Chapters

THE TRIAL

The disrepute of the Atlanta police department was a
significant issue in the Phagan murder case. There was
pressure on the department to salvage its image as guardian
of law and order (severely undercut by the unsolved mur-
ders of thirteen black women in the city), as widespread
charges of police inefficiency and corruption were circulat-
ing throughout Fulton County. Adanta's crime rate soared
following the turn of the century with the rapid increase in
population: between 1900 and 1910, the number of city
residents increased from 90,000 to nearly 155,000.

Now, a litde white girl had been murdered and there had
to be a conviction. The department needed to come out on
top on this one. Before Leo Frank was ever indicted by the
grand jury, three of Atlanta's detectives had resigned their
positions. Apparendy they did not want to be involved in a
situation which demanded that they concentrate on gath-
ering evidence to convict Frank and ignore anything which
might clear him.

Leo Frank's decision to hire the Pinkerton Detective
Agency on behalf of the National Pencil Company proved
to be an unfortunate move on two counts. First, Solicitor
General Dorsey insisted that Frank had employed the Pink-
ertons to cover up his own guilt. Part of the trial testimony

27

28 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

focused on the question of whether Frank or his attorneys
requested the Pinkertons to suppress evidence in the case.
Second, an ordinance in the City of Atianta made all private
detectives subject to police supervision and control. No
private agency could operate in the city without the consent
of the Board of Police Commissioners. Harry Scott, the
assistant superintendent of the Pinkertons in Arianta, was
quoted as saying, "unless the Jew is convicted the Pinkerton
Detective Agency will have to get out of Atianta." This
statement would be recalled under oath by L. P. Whitfield,
a Pinkerton detective who worked on the Phagan investi-
gation.

At the same time. Colonel Thomas B. Felder, who had
been hired by a committee of citizens living in the vicinity
of the Phagan girPs family, charged Chief Lanford with
endeavoring to shield the Phagan murder suspects. In a
statement issued on May 24, 1913, Felder said: "I would
have the good people of this community know that from
the day and hour of the arrest of Lee and Frank, charged
with the murder of litde Mary Phagan, Newport Lanford
and his co-conspirators have left 'no stone unturned' in
their efforts to shield and protect these suspects."

Felder was associated with the mayor in fighting police
graft and he was upset that a hidden dictograph had been
used when he was interviewed by Chief Lanford. According
to the dictograph report, Felder attempted to bribe Chief
Lanford to turn over to him an affidavit by J. W. Coleman.
In anger, Felder accused the police and the Pinkertons of
shielding both Frank and Lee. This might, some people
thought, have encouraged the police to convict Frank,
thereby repudiating Felder and preventing the graft inves-
tigation.

The Sunday before the Mary Phagan murder trial, the
Atlanta Constitution devoted a full page to a discussion of
the legal forces on both sides of the case. Leo Frank was
described as having friends and relatives of wealth and
influence and was reported to have employed legal talent of

The Trial 29

the highest order: Luther Z. Rosser, Herbert Haas, Rueben
Arnold, and Morris Brandon would serve as defense coun-
sel. Rosser, then fifty-four, was a native of Gordon County,
Georgia, and a member of the local bar association since
1883. In his thirty years of Atlanta legal practice, "Mr.
Rosser had gained renown both as a criminal and civil
advocate.'' He had the reputation of an expert examiner of
witnesses.

Hugh M. Dorsey, the Solicitor General of the Fulton
County Superior Court, was the principal counsel repre-
senting the State. Dorsey, forty-two, was assisted by Frank
A. Hooper, Sr. and Assistant Solicitor General E. A. Ste-
phens. Mr. Hooper was a native of Floyd County, Georgia.
That Sunday morning the Constitution also wrote that "A
trial is necessarily a public affair, in order that decency and
fairness may be guaranteed.''

The trial would be held on the first floor of the old city
hall building. The Fulton County courthouse was then
under construction. Judge Leonard S. Roan, the trial judge,
expressed some concern about the frightful weather because
a large crowd was anticipated.

The trial was scheduled to begin Monday morning, July
28, and the weather prophecy called for temperatures
around 90 degrees. Leo Frank had not been out of the
Tower since May 8th, when he was confined there by the
coroner's jury. Most of the citizens of Adanta had never
even seen him, much less knew anything about him. When
the ten o'clock hour arrived, Pryor Street in front of the
temporary courthouse was filled with a mob of curious
onlookers. All day, through the blazing heat, the crowd
hugged the hot walls of the city hall building like "lethargic
leeches," gazing intendy at the open windows of the court-
room. A few minutes after ten, Leo Frank was led into the
courtroom by a deputy. Dressed with scrupulous neatness,
Mr. Frank wore a distinctive looking gray suit. As he
entered the courtroom, he smiled cordially to several friends

30 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

and spoke briefly with a woman employee of the pencil
factory.

When Judge Roan called the court to order, all took their
seats. Members of the jury sat to the right of the judge's
bench. Leo Frank was flanked by his wife and mother at the
defense table. Mrs. Lucille Frank wore a thin China silk
shirtwaist, a black skirt and black hat, and white kid gloves.

Chief Lanford, Detective Campbell, Attorney Hooper,
and Hugh Dorsey sat at the prosecution's table. More than
a score of reporters were at the press table taking notes.
Behind the participants, there were seats for spectators,
separated only by a railing from the drama which unfolded.
Detective Waggoner was assigned to preserve order at the
trial.

By 1:30 P.M., a jury had been selected from the 144
veniremen. Once the twelve were sworn in. Judge Roan
adjourned until three o'clock. During the recess, Frank and
his wife and mother ate dinner together in the anteroom.

A claim agent with the Atlanta and West Point Railroad
named Fred Winbum was foreman of the jury. All the
jurors (see below) were white men; eleven were married
and their average age was thirty-five. Kimball House Hotel
served as quarters for the jury during the course of the trial
and each juror received two dollars a day. When the Kimball
House Hotel opened its doors in October 1870, it was
billed as "the finest in the South." It burned down thirteen
years later, but reopened in 1885. Those fifteen years saw
the readmission of the State of Georgia to the Union, a
cordial return visit by General Sherman to the city he once
burned, and the founding of the Atlanta Journal. Woodrow
Wilson made his residence in Atlanta in 1882 when he
practiced law there. Joel C. Harris published Uncle Remus^
and John S. Pemberton made the first "ideal brain tonic."
Pemberton's tonic became world famous as Coca-Cola,
"Georgia Champagne."

The Trial 31

Jury Selected to Try Frank

C. J. Basehart, age 26, single, pressman; 216 Bryan
Street. Nicknamed "Burtuss Dalton" after the state's
witness who described Daisy Hopkins as a "peach."
Daisy Hopkins was a prostitute alleged to use the
National Pencil Factory for assignations.

A. H. Henslee, age 36, married, head salesman at Franklin
Buggy Company of Bamesville; 47 Oak Street. Nick-
named "Big Newt."

J. F. HiGDON, age 42, married, building contractor; 108
Ormewood Avenue. Nicknamed "Luther Rosser."

W. M. Jeffries, age 33, married, real estate; Bolton, Ga.
Nicknamed "Judge Roan" and "HoUoway," the witness
whom Hugh Dorsey accused of trapping him.

Marcellus Joehenning, age 46, married, shipping clerk;
161 Jones Street. Nicknamed "Daisy Hoplans."

W. F. Medcalf, age 36, married, mailer; 136 Kirkwood
Avenue. Nicknamed "Albert McKnight" after the dis-
owned husband of Minola, cook for the Selig family.

J. T. OzBURN, age 36, married, optician; 30 Ashby Street.
Nicknamed "Christopher Columbus Barrett" after the
employee who had discovered the blood spots.

Frederick Van L. Smith, age 37, married, electrical
manufacturing agent; 481 Cherokee Avenue. Nick-
named "Rabbi."

Deder Townsend, age 23, married, paying teller; 17 East
Linden Street. Nicknamed "Bride," since he had been
married only four months.

Fred E. Winburn, age 39, married, claim agent for the
Atlanta and West Point Railroad; 213 Lucille Avenue.
Nicknamed "John Black," after the detective who was
grilled so fiercely by Luther Rosser.

A. L. WiSBEY, age 43, married, cashier; 31 Hood Street.
Nicknamed "John Starnes" after the city detective.

32 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

M. S. WooDWARX), age 34, married, cashier at King Hard-
ware Company; 182 Park Avenue. Nicknamed "Little
Newt." He was a running mate and close friend of A.
H. Henslee, caUed "Big Newt."

In the afternoon of July 28, Mrs. J. W. Coleman was
called to the stand as the first witness for the State of
Georgia. She broke down when she saw her daughter's
clothing and cried again during cross-examination. Mrs.
Coleman wore a simple black mourning dress and a black
hat with heavy veil.

The nightwatchman. Newt Lee, was also called to the
stand that first afternoon. He testified that he came to work
at about 4:00 P.M. on the Saturday of the murder. Mr.
Frank had sent him into town until six o'clock, and then
had called him from home around seven o'clock that eve-
ning to ask if everything was all right at the factory. When
Lee arrived at the factory that Saturday afternoon he foimd
all the doors to the building unlocked, the usual procedure.
Lee did say that with the doors to the factory unlocked
when he returned at 6:00 P.M., anyone could have entered
the building while Mr. Frank was working in the second
floor office. The nightvv^tchman said he was told to check
all the rooms of the factory, including the basement, every
half-hour. He went to the basement Saturday night for the
first time around seven o'clock, but only went to the bottom
of the ladder and checked for fire. He went all the way
down into the basement about 3:00 A.M. the following
morning to use the toilet — ^the one Mr. Frank had ordered
him to use. In the trial transcript, next to Lee's name is the
notation "colored."

By day's end, both Hugh Dorsey and Rueben Arnold
were pleased with the progress they had made. That night
two black men reportedly attempted to burglarize the home
of Mr. Frederick Van L. Smith, one of the jurors.

During the second day, Luther Rosser tried to connect
Newt Lee with the crime, or at least to show that he knew

The Trial 33

more about the death of Mary Phagan than he had told.
But Lee continued to stick with his original story. Only
Lee, Sergeant Dobbs of the police force, and Detective
Stames were called to testify Tuesday. At one point. Solici-
tor Dorsey claimed Luther Rosser was trying to impeach
his witness John Starnes. Tuesday's crowd was considerably
larger than on the first day; many people had to stand in
order to see the proceedings.

Sergeant Dobbs testified that the girl's body had been
dragged from the elevator shaft to the spot where it was
found lying. Newt Lee was not nervous when the police
first arrived, Dobbs said. But Mr. Frank was very nervous
the Sunday morning after the murder, said Detective
Starnes. The policeman said he noticed the factory super-
intendent rubbing his hands. This brought a hail of cross-
fire from the defense. Stames went on to say that Lee was,
in fact, nervous when the officers arrived.

"Frank's most ordinary movements, such as catching a
street car on this corner or that, the lowering of his head,
the fashion of his hair, the rubbing of his hands, the tone
of his voice, the contour of his lips, were magnified and
lifted into glaring light. ..." Even the way he swallowed
was discussed in detail during the trial. 'This was for the
purpose of showing that Frank was guilty because he was
nervous and Newt Lee wasn^t.^""^ Yet, more than two hundred
witnesses vouched for Frank's good character.

On Wednesday, Detective John Black's testimony was
shot to the ground under the merciless cross-fire of Luther
Rosser. Time and again, the detective contradicted himself
or confessed he did not remember. Since Black had devel-
oped much of the evidence against Frank, the invalidation
of his testimony was significant. But Black insisted there
were no blood stains discovered on the "metal" room floor
on Sunday during the police investigation.

One especially interested spectator at the Thursday after-
noon session at the city hall building was Mrs. Callie Scott
Appelbaum. Judge Roan had also presided in her murder

34 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

trial; the jury eventually found her innocent of murdering
her husband Jerome.

The wife of mechanic John Arthur White was the first
person to take the stand on Thursday, July 31. Maggie
White had gone to the factory twice on Memorial Day and
had seen Mr. Frank both times. Her husband was one of
the men working on the fourth floor; she had brought him
some lunch. A black man was standing behind some boxes
on the first floor, Mrs. White said. She could not identify
the man, but she saw him around one o'clock that Saturday.

New testimony came out Thursday. A machinist em-
ployed at the pencil factory declared that he had found
what was supposed to be Mary Phagan's pay envelope near
her machine in the second floor "metal" room. R. B. Barrett
also stated that he had discovered blood stains on the floor
by her machine and a strand of hair on the machine itself.
The machinist's testimony supported Solicitor Dorsey's
contention that the murder was committed on the second
floor of the factory and that the body was taken to the
basement at a later time.

Harry Scott of the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired by
Leo Frank was then put on the stand. Scott testified that he
refused a request by Defense Attorney Haas to report his
investigative progress to Haas and his client prior to report-
ing to the Atlanta police. Scott implied that Haas wanted
to suppress evidence about the case. Since Leo Frank had
employed the Pinkerton Agency, it would seem reasonable
to expect that company's agents to report to him or his
designated representatives. The request was interpreted by
Dorsey and Scott as interference with a police investigation.

After finishing with Harry Scott, the prosecution called
E. F. Holloway, day watchman and timekeeper for the
National Pencil Company. Despite being a witness for the
prosecution, Holloway's testimony was favorable to Frank.
On that day in April, Holloway unlocked the elevator motor
in order to saw some boards for Denham and White, the
mechanics on the fourth floor. The saw and the elevator

The Trial 35

worked off the same motor. When he finished, Holloway
left the elevator unlocked.

Asked about the blood spots, Holloway stated that there
were frequently blood stains in the "metal'' room. Often,
one of the girls would injure a finger on the machinery and
bleed on the floor. In addition, the blood spots were only
six feet from the ladies' toilet. Sometimes the girls would
leave blood on the floor going toward the sink if they cut
themselves. Holloway also testified that the cord found
aroimd Mary Phagan's neck was not unusual or difficult to
find at the factory. Identical cords were lying all over the
building because they were wrapped around every bundle
of slats and pencils. It was possible for anyone entering the
building to find one of the cords and use it.

The manager of the Georgia Cedar Company was next
on the stand. N. V. Darley was very familiar with the
defendant and the operation of the pencil factory. Accord-
ing to Darley, Frank's slight size would make it difficult to
subdue Mary Phagan who, though only 4 feet II inches,
weighed 125 pounds herself Darley also characterized
Frank as a very nervous type of person. He had often
observed Frank wringing his hands, pulling his hands
through his hair, and rubbing his hands together, especially
when anything went wrong at the factory.

Since he was also in a managerial position, Darley was
familiar with the financial report Frank prepared Saturday
afternoon. He described how these calculations were done
and testified that no one could correcdy perform all of the
operations involved in the report if very upset: they re-
quired clear thinking, and Leo Frank would not have been
able to do that if he had just murdered someone.

With regard to the "murder notes," Darley said both
types of note pads could be found all over the factory. One
kind was used by foremen in making notes or reports. The
order forms were also readily available, especially loose
sheets strewn around because of misplaced carbons. Ac-
cording to Darley, the timeclock tape of Lee's nightly

36 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

rounds did not mean much. Anyone who knew how to
operate the timeclock could have done an entire night's
punches in the space of about ten minutes. Hence, Newt
Lee could have been anywhere in the factory or not in the
factory at all for long periods of time without its showing
up on the timeclock.

The prosecution brought in several witnesses with medi-
cal backgrounds to discuss Mary Phagan's physical condi-
tion. First was Dr. Claude Smith, the city bacteriologist.
Next Dr. J. W. Hurt, the county physician, was sworn in.
Hurf s testimony dwelt on the question of the time of
death, which could not be placed. Much of the difficulty
had to do with stomach contents and an inability to deter-
mine how quickly whole cabbage leaves would be digested.

On April 26, Mary Phagan had eaten cabbage and bread
for breakfast prior to leaving for the trolley car. When the
post-mortem examination was done, there were whole cab-
bage leaves and bread found undigested in her stomach.
Medical analysis could not determine exactly how long after
she had eaten the cabbage and bread death occurred —
opinion varied from one-half hour to several hours. Exercise
in the form of running to catch the trolley would slow the
digestive process. Since Mary obviously did not take the
time to chew her food, it is probable that she was late
leaving to catch the streetcar and ran to make it to her stop
before the car pulled away. She certainly did not consume a
leisurely breakfast. There was also the possibility that fear
and extended unconsciousness disturbed the fimctions of
her digestive system. Cabbage is generally difficult to digest,
especially when it is swallowed in almost whole, unchewed
leaves as Mary had done. The fact that the bread was
likewise undigested would, under normal circumstances,
indicate a relatively short time span between ingestion and
death. However, the circumstances were hardly normal.
Fear and the blow to her head, if it only rendered her
unconscious, would have slowed down her digestion.

By nine o'clock Sunday morning, April 27, rigor mortis

The Trial 37

had set in completely. That would indicate death had
occurred quite a few hours earlier. But again, this was not
certain: the speed with which bodies go through rigor
mortis varies, and the doctors could give no definite infor-
mation about time of death.

Dr. Hurt also dealt extensively with the question of rape.
Mary Phagan's hymen was not intact when Hurt examined
her. He detected no injury to the hymen, implying that it
had not been ruptured just prior to death. She was not
pregnant. He concluded that Miss Phagan was menstru-
ating at the time of her death. Hurt saw no evidence of
vaginal laceration or violence, and concluded there had
been no rape.

But there were certain questions unanswered. The cause
of death was not determined. Dr. Hurt did not examine
Mary's limgs for signs of congestion, which would have
occurred if she had died of strangulation, so he could not
say for sure if the blow to her head killed her, stunned her,
or rendered her unconscious. It is possible that the cord
aroimd her neck was placed there after unconsciousness or
after death or even while she was still alert.

Dr. H. T Harris examined the body after exhumation,
ten days after burial. There was no spermatazoa in the
vaginal tract, he said. While he felt there had been violence
done to the vagina, he thought it could have been caused
by Dr. Hurt's digital examination of the area.

From the evidence presented by Drs. Hurt and Harris, it
seems that rape was not the motive for the attack on Mary
Phagan. Further, it seemed unlikely that Leo Frank would
attack the girl to steal $1.20. His salary of $150 per month
made Mary's pittance a poor reason for murder. Others,
however, might have found the sum worth stealing. At-
tempted theft could have led to murder if there was resis-
tance.

James Conley was the State's major witness. He was a 27-
year-old black man who had gone to public school in
Atlanta for two years. His police record was extensive.

38 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

although he had not served long sentences. He had worked
for the National Pencil Ck)mpany for about two years,
during which time he had been in prison on three occa-
sions. He had also been in prison about seven or eight times
in the previous five years, according to his own testimony.

More than once, Conley had been found drunk in the
factory. Many people testified at the trial as to his generally
poor character and his lack of credibility under oath. The
woman he lived with was never subpoenaed to corroborate
his story of his whereabouts on the Saturday night of the
murder. Her testimony would have been admissible because
she was not his lawful wedded wife. Jim Conley's attorney
was William M. Smith.

Conle/s testimony suggested that he was in the factory
all day on Memorial Day and observed everyone's move-
ments very closely — or perhaps that his story was well
rehearsed. He did admit consuming large quantities of
alcohol that day, and this fact alone should have cast doubt
on his memory. It was also possible that he was the "Negro"
Mrs. White saw by the boxes near the elevator that day.

Jim Conley declared that on many previous occasions he
had 'Svatched" as a lookout while Leo Frank "visited" with
ladies in the factory and that he had acted as lookout on
Thanksgiving Day, 1912. (In his earlier affidavits, Conley
had stated that his 'Svatching" meant being a watchman for
the factory. But this was not possible, since Newt Lee was
the first black watchman ever employed at the factory.)
Conley described Frank's encounters with the ladies as not
being normal. He intimated that Frank had confessed to
Conley that he (Frank) 'Svasn't built like other men".
Claiming to have caught glimpses of these encounters,
Conley said that he had never known "men what got
children" to have done those things. His description of the
lady lying on a table with her skirts up and Frank kneeling
in front of her may certainly have been seen as a perversion.

Conley stated that on Memorial Day, Mary Phagan went
upstairs. He heard a scream, and then Monteen Stover,

The Trial 39

another employee, went up and came back down. Then
Frank called to Conley and asked if he had seen a litde girl
go upstairs. Conley said he saw two go up but only one
come back down. Then, according to Conley, Frank said he
tried to have his way with the other one. But she would not
cooperate, so he hit her. Conley said Frank told him to go
see how she was. When the floorsweeper returned, he told
Frank she was dead. Frank then told Conley to wrap the
body up and take it down to the basement. Conleys
testimony was that Frank had to help him carry the body
all the way to the basement. He also said that Leo Frank
had to unlock the elevator which they used to transport
Mary Phagan's body to the basement.

When they returned to Frank's office, according to Con-
ley, Leo Frank gave him some notepads and a pencil and
proceeded to dictate a total of four "murder notes." Frank
then told Conley to bum Mary's body in the furnace. He
allegedly gave Jim Conley $200, but took it back, promising
to return the money later. Frank was said to have been very
nervous throughout this entire period of time. He was said
to have muttered about having wealthy relatives in New
Tfork and, so, why should he hang? Before Conley left
Frank's office, his boss told him that if he [Conley] were
arrested he [Frank] would put up the bond and send Conley
away.

Conleys description of events on that Saturday is fiill of
contradictions and changes. From the time of his arrest, his
story changed repeatedly. At least five different versions
were given in affidavits. On the stand, he contradicted
testimony given by other State's witnesses earlier in the
trial. In one affidavit prior to the trial, Conley swore that
Leo Frank had dictated the murder notes to him on Friday
afternoon. Only when the Atlanta police told Conley that
his story would not do because it showed premeditation
did he change it to having written the notes on Saturday.
Early in the interrogation process Conley refiised to admit
that he had been in the pencil factory at all on Saturday,

40 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

April 26. Even his story in the last affidavit before the trial
had changed by the time he ascended the witness stand. He
claimed then that he met Frank on the street Saturday, by
chance, and went to the factory at his boss's urging. Then
at the trial he swore that Frank had made an appointment
for Conley to come to the factory on Saturday afternoon.

Until his courtroom testimony, Jim Conley denied ever
having seen Monteen Stover or hearing a scream on Me-
morial Day at the factory. By the time he was under oath,
both of these supposed facts had changed.

Harry Scott, the Pinkerton detective, testified once again.
He had been present during police interrogations of Jim
Conley. The police, according to Scott, dictated changes in
the story when they felt what Conley was saying 'Svould
not fit" or 'Svould not do." Scott also stated under oath
that "anything in his [Conley's] story that looked to be out
of place we told him wouldn't do. After he had made his
last statements we didn't wish to make any fiirther sugges-
tion to him at that time." If Scott's testimony was true, the
Atlanta police changed the story of a key witness in order
to bolster their case against the primary suspect!

According to Monteen Stover, she had collected her pay
from Leo Frank between 11:55 A.M. and 12:05 P.M. on
April 26. Conley claimed he saw Mary Phagan go upstairs
before Miss Stover did. But Mary Phagan did not get off
the trolley car at Marietta and Hunter streets outside the
factory imtil 12: 10 P.M.

After Conley left the stand, Mrs. White was again called.
She stated that the Negro she saw was about Conley's size
and build, but she could not be certain the man was Conley.

Next, N. V. Darley returned to the stand. He refiited
Conley's statement that Darley and Leo Frank were on
friendly terms with Jim Conley, and said that they did not
engage in friendly banter and back slapping with the floor-
sweeper, as Conley had claimed. Darley also gave informa-
tion about the door leading to an area of the factory
building previously used by the Clark Wooden Ware

The Trial 41

Company. That door, Darley said, had been nailed shut
when the Clark Wooden Ware Company moved out. He
also said that the door was found broken down after the
murder and that he had it renailed.

E. F. Holloway was recalled and his testimony also refiited
Conley*s. Conley claimed that he was paid whether he
bothered to punch the factory's timeclock or not. But
Holloway stated that on numerous occasions he had to find
Conley and have him punch the timeclock so Conley could
be paid. There were no exchanges of friendliness and joking
between Conley and Frank, said Holloway, who insisted
that he was always at the factory on Saturdays and that
women never came to visit Leo Frank there. Frank always
conducted himself like a gendeman with females — employ-
ees and others who had business there, such as the wives of
employees. According to Holloway, Lucille Frank was at the
factory at least one Saturday a month, and sometimes more
often. Her visits made it imlikely that her husband would
be meeting other women there.

As its first witness, the defense called W. M. Matthews, a
motorman for the Georgia Railway and Electric Company.
He was operating a trolley on Memorial Day. Matthews
stated that Mary Phagan boarded his trolley car on the
English Avenue line at Lindsay Street around 11:50 A.M.
She left the trolley at 12:10 EM. at the stop at Broad and
Hunter streets. He also testified that George Epps fre-
quendy rode on his trolley, but on April 26 was definitely
not a passenger. Young Epps had given a statement to
police asserting that he had seen and spoken with Mary
Phagan on the trolley that day. (Later, the newspapers
carried a story in which Epps rescinded his previous state-
ment.) W. T. Hollis, the street car conductor, supported
Mr. Matthews' testimony in all respects.

Next, the defense called Mr. Herbert G. Schiff, an assis-
tant superintendent at the pencil factory. He had been
employed with the company for about five years. Schiff*
stated that he earned $80-per-month and that Leo Frank

42 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

earned $150-per-month. On several occasions he had seen
Jim Conley try to borrow money from female employees.
He confirmed Holloway's testimony that Lucille Frank was
frequently present on Saturdays, often taking dictation from
her husband. SchifFsaid Conley was familiar with the layout
of the basement because the Negro employees ate there.

Miss Hattie Hall was swom in. She was a stenographer
employed by the National Pencil Company, although she
also worked for Montag Brothers. (Sigmund Montag, a
business partner in the pencil company, handled the fi-
nances and Miss Hall assisted him.) On Saturday April 26,
Leo Frank asked Hattie Hall to come to the pencil factory
to take some dictation for him. She stated that Leo Frank
did not work on the financial report in the morning. Miss
Hall left the factory at 12:02 P.M. by the timeclock, and
reported there was no "litrie girl" coming into the building
at that time.

Next on the stand was Corinthia Hall, a forelady in the
factory's finishing room. Memorial Day she saw Mr. White,
Mr. Denham, and May Barrett and her daughter on the
fourth floor.

Magnolia Kennedy testified that on Friday, April 25, Mr.
SchifF was handing out pay envelopes, as usual. She was
standing behind Helen Ferguson waiting to be paid, but
Miss Ferguson did not ask for Mary Phagan's pay envelope.
Earlier Helen Ferguson had said that she requested both
her own and Mary Phagan's pay envelopes from Leo Frank.
But the National Pencil Company had a policy whereby no
one was allowed to pick up another person's pay without
written permission from that person. Miss Ferguson's ear-
lier story had seemed to imply that Frank purposely did not
give Mary Phagan's envelope to Helen Ferguson so that he
could meet Miss Phagan and lure her into illicit activities.

Wade Campbell was the next defense witness. He was the
brother of Mrs. J. A. White and had been employed at the
pencil factory for a year-and-a-half. After Mary Phagan was
killed, Campbell saw Jim Conley avidly scanning the news-

The Trial 43

papers for reports of the murder and progress of the
investigation. (Conley had testified that he did not read
well enough to read the newspapers.)

According to testimony provided by Lemmie Quinn, R.
B. Barrett, the man who found the supposed blood spots
in the "metal" room, often spoke to him about collecting
the reward money if Leo Frank were convicted of the
murder. Mr. Quinn was in Frank's office on April 26 and
saw the superintendent at 12:20 P.M.

Harry Denham worked at the factory from 7:00 A.M. to
3:10 P.M. on Memorial Day. The elevator, he said, defi-
nitely did not run that day because the noise from the
motor would have been heard on the fourth floor. If the car
hit bottom in the basement, vibrations would also have
been felt throughout the building.

The Selig family's cook also gave her testimony to the
court. The Franks lived with the Seligs at the time of the
murder. Minola McKnight stated that her husband, Albert,
was not in the Seligs' kitchen between 1:00 and 2:00 P.M.
on April 26, contrary to his statement. She also asserted
that Hugh Dorsey along with her husband and another
man tried to force her to say that Leo Frank had been very
upset that day. They wanted her to endorse a statement that
Mr. Frank asked his wife, Lucille, to get his gun so he could
kill himself. Despite the fact that Mrs. McKnight left the
Selig home at 8:00 P.M. that night, she was supposed to
testify that Leo Frank made it impossible for Lucille to
sleep because of his extreme nervousness. Minola McKnight
said she refiised to be party to what she termed outright
lies. She was then placed in jail as a material witness. She
finally signed a false statement, because Hugh Dorsey told
her that signing the affidavit was the only way she would be
released. Mrs. McKnight swore in court that Leo Frank
arrived home at about 1:20 P.M. on Saturday for lunch and
did not leave home to return to the office until after 2:00
P.M. He ate his usual lunch and was not nervous.

Emil Selig, father of Lucille Frank, was then called. On

44 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Memorial Day, Leo Frank came home and ate his limch as
usual, Selig said. There were no bruises, scratches, or other
signs of struggle on Leo's body. His manner was normal at
lunch and that evening. Leo greeted several guests who
were visiting the Seligs and even related a humorous story
he had read in the paper. As to the telephone call to Newt
Lee, Mr. Selig testified that Mr. Frank would firequendy call
the factory at night and speak to the watchman.

Both Miss Helen Kerns and Mrs. A. P. Levy stated that
they saw Leo Frank on his way home for limch between
one and two o'clock on April 26.

Rebecca Carson, an employee of the factory, spoke with
Jim Conley and another man called "Snowball," after the
murder. She said Conley was so upset that he dropped his
broom and ran out of the room when he heard that the
Negro Mrs. White had seen by the boxes at the foot of the
stairs was probably the murderer. When she asked where
he had been on the day of the murder, Conley told Miss
Carson: "I was so drunk I don't know where I was or what
I did."

Alonzo Mann's testimony was fairly short: "I am office
boy at the National Pencil Company," he said. "I began
working there April 1st, 1913. 1 sit sometimes in the outer
office and stand around in the outer hall. I left the factory
at half past eleven on April 26th. When I left there Miss
Hall, the stenographer from Montags, was in the office with
Mr. Frank. Mr. Frank told me to phone to Mr. SchifF and
tell him to come down. I telephoned him, but the girl
answered the phone and said he hadn't got up yet. I
telephoned once. I worked there two Saturday afternoons
of the weeks previous to the murder and stayed there until
half past three or four. Frank was always working during
that time. I never saw him bring any women into the factory
and drink with them. I have never seen Dalton there. On
April 26th, I saw Holloway, Irby, McCrary and Darley at
the factory. I didn't see Quinn. I don't remember seeing
Corinthia Hall, Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. White, Graham, Tillan-

The Trial 45

der, or Wade Campbell. I left there 11:30." On cross-
examination by the State the fourteen-year-old office boy
said, '"When Mr. Frank came that morning he went right
on into the office and was at work there and stayed there.
He went out once. Don't know how long he stayed out."

Mrs. Rae Frank, Leo's mother, also took the stand. She
testified that her son had no wealthy relatives in Brooklyn
or in New York, at all. Leo's father, Rudolph Frank, had
been a traveling salesman. Mr. Frank was in poor health and
no longer able to work. The only relative of independent
means was Leo's uncle, Moses Frank, who lived in Adanta.

Leo Frank's brother-in-law, Charles F. Ursanbach, his
sister, Mrs. Ursanbach, and his other sister, Mrs. A. E.
Marcus, all testified in his behalf Charles Ursanbach and
Leo Frank were supposed to go together to the Adanta
Crackers game on Memorial Day. Because of the overcast
weather and his work at the factory, Leo called Mr. Ursan-
bach and left a message with his cook to cancel the outing.

Frank Payne had been the office boy at the National
Pencil Company on Thanksgiving Day 1912. Jim Conley
left the factory at 10:20 A.M. that day, Payne said, and
both Leo Frank and Herbert SchifF were still working at
that time. There were no women with them. Payne's normal
duties would have kept him around the office all day, and
the defense argued that he was in a better position to
observe Frank and SchifF than Conley, who had said Frank
was engaged in illicit activities that Thanksgiving Day a
year earlier.

The foreman of the varnishing department, Joe Stelker,
testified that the supposed blood stains on the "metal"
room floor were probably just varnish mixed with pigment.
He said there were often spills of pigment and varnish
mixed with haskoline in many areas of the factory.

A Pinkerton detective, W. D. McWorth, testified that he
found a cut strand of cord which matched the cord discov-
ered around Mary Phagan's neck. This strand was lying
near the door to the Clark Wooden Ware Company. There

46 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

were also some papers dated February 11, 1911, next to the
cord. In the same area, McWorth found a pay envelope
which had the number "186" and the initials "M. P."
written on it.

Quite possibly this was Mary Phagan's last pay envelope.
Judging from the area in which it was found, Mary went
down the stairway from Frank's office and was accosted by
someone waiting near the front hallway. Mrs. White's "Ne-
gro" may have confronted the lone young girl and tried to
get her pay. If a struggle developed, she could have been hit
on the head and lowered down the chute inside the door to
the Clark Wooden Ware Company. This chute led to the
basement. Mary Phagan's attacker could then have gone
down the ladder to the basement and killed the semi-
conscious or unconscious girl. Conley's reaction to the
statement about the "Negro" probably being the murderer
and his avid interest in the newspaper stories seemed to
suggest that he had some connection with Miss Phagan's
murder.

Conley swore under oath that he defecated in the base-
ment inside the elevator shaft on Memorial Day morning.
If he and Frank had indeed used the elevator to take Mary's
body to the basement, the excrement would have been
smashed when the elevator hit bottom. On Sunday morning
the police themselves stated that there was a perfectly
formed pile of feces in the elevator shaft. It would appear,
therefore, that the elevator could not have been used on
Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, the first police officers on
the scene after Newt Lee's call used the ladder to reach the
site of the body. (The excrement was smashed eventually,
but not until later in the day on Sunday when the police
used the elevator to go down to the basement.)

Mr. A. D. Greenfield was one of the owners of the
\fenable Building where the National Pencil Company's
factory was located. He had owned the building since 1900.
Greenfield's testimony concerned primarily the building's
history. Originally it was leased to Montag Brothers, who.

The Trial 47

in txim leased an area to the Clark Wooden Ware Company.
When Montag needed more space, it moved to another
location nearby and the National Pencil Company, a related
firm, moved into the Venable Building. When the Clark
Wooden Ware Company moved out of the building, the
doorway to their area was nailed up and was not used by
the pencil factory. There was no outside entrance into Clark
Wooden Ware. Clark employees came into the building
through the entrance to the pencil company.

The defense brought in several experts to refute the
prosecution's medical evaluations. Professor George Bach-
man, a professor of physiological chemistry at the Atlanta
College of Physicians and Surgeons, testified that cabbage
could sit in the stomach for a long time without digestion
progressing very far. Digestive processes vary with the
individual. The speed with which one person might digest
cabbage would probably be different from that of another
person. A child's digestion would certainly not be the same
as an adult's, and the function and speed of their digestive
tract were not usually studied. Professor Bachman also
stated that unmasticated cabbage would certainly require a
lot of time before it would even begin to be digested.

Dr. Willis Westmoreland also provided medical support
for the defense. He dealt with the question of violence to
the vaginal area and the possibility of rape. According to
Dr. Westmoreland, congestion of the vagina could be due
to ongoing or recent menstruation. And a digital examina-
tion of the organ, such as the one performed by Dr. Hurt
at the initial post-mortem, could definitely strip away epi-
thelial cells. Dr. Harris' examination, which revealed evi-
dence of vaginal violence, was conducted after Dr. Hurt's
digital exam, so Dr. Harris could not give a definitive report
about when the epithelial stripping had occurred. It was
also germane that Dr. Harris conducted the check after the
body had been embalmed: the embalming process would
have changed many critical aspects of the body's physiology.

48 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Thus, examinations done after Mary Phagan's body had
been exhumed would not be accurate.

The law in Georgia specified that the defendant in a
criminal case could not give testimony under oath in his or
her own behalf but could make an unsworn statement to
the jury. A defendant's spouse was not permitted to testify
in the trial, neither for nor against the accused. When the
defendant did deliver a statement, defense lawyers could
not ask him or her any questions. Of course, the prosecut-
ing attorney would not ask questions as he would not want
his case demolished by unexpected replies.

Leo Frank took the stand, without benefit of oath, in his
own defense. He recounted his early life and progressed to
the events of Confederate Memorial Day. Frank stated:
"Miss Hall left my office on her way home at this time and
to the best of my information there were in the building
/Arthur White and Harry Denham and Arthur White's wife
on the top floor. To the best of my knowledge it must have
been from 10 to 15 minutes after Miss Hall left my office,
when this litde girl, whom I afterwards found to be Mary
Phagan, entered my office and asked for her pay envelope.
I asked for her number and she told me; I went to the cash
box and took her envelope out and handed it to her,
identifying the envelope by the number. She left my office
and apparendy had gotten as far as the door from my office
leading to the outer office, when she evidendy stopped and
asked me if the metal had arrived, and I told her no. She
continued on her way out and I heard the sound of her
footsteps as she went away. It was a few moments after she
asked me this question that I had an impression of a female
voice saying something; I don't know which way it came
from; just passed away and I had that impression. This litde
girl had evidendy worked in the metal department by her
question and had been laid off owing to the fact that some
metal that had been ordered had not arrived at the factory;
hence, her question. I only recognized this litde girl from
having seen her around the plant and did not know her

The Trial 49

name, simply identifying her envelope from her having
called her number to me."

Frank also declared: "Gentlemen, I know nothing what-
ever of the death of little Mary Phagan. I had no part in
causing her death nor do I know how she came to her death
after she took her money and left my office. I never even
saw Conley in the factory or anywhere else on that date,
April 26th, 1913."

Frank concluded his poignant four-hour speech with
these words: "Gentlemen, some newspaper men have called
me 'the silent man in the tower,' and I kept my silence and
my counsel advisedly, until the proper time and place. The
time is now, the place is here, and I have told you the truth,
the whole truth."

When he finished, the jury and the courtroom spectators
were spellbound; some of the jurors were teary eyed. Many
people felt the accused Jew had spoken the truth. His voice,
his demeanor, everything about him gave the impression of
a man being wholly open and honest.

After Frank, George Gordon took the stand. He was the
attorney for Minola McKnight. He told the jury that during
the course of the police investigation, Mrs. McKnight had
been unlawfully detained in order to get information for
the prosecution.

Nearly 200 citizens took the stand as character witnesses
for Leo Frank. Most of them simply took the oath and gave
their names, sometimes including their professions. Each
stated that he or she had known Leo Frank for a certain
time and that the defendant was of good character. The
sheer number of people required considerable time to hear.
In the grueling heat of Atlanta's July and August the jury
no doubt became very tired of the seemingly endless pro-
cession of character witnesses. This was one of several
mistakes made by Frank's defense counsel.

The prosecution closed its case with an impassioned
speech by Hugh Dorsey. Holding Mary Phagan's clothes
before the jury, the Solicitor snarled that the "fiendish

50 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

degenerate'' took the little girPs life. The dead girPs mother
uttered a terrifying shriek.

Before the jury retired for deliberation, Judge Roan held
a consultation at the bench. In the presence of the jury, the
judge discussed with the chief of police and the colonel of
the Fifth Georgia Regiment the best means of protecting
Frank should he be acquitted. The militia was kept under
arms that night. A 'Verdict of acquittal would cause a riot
such as would shock the country and cause Atlanta's streets
to run with innocent blood," wrote the Atlanta Journal.
The judge also advised the defense counsel not to have Leo
Frank present in the courtroom or to be there themselves
when the verdict was rendered. There was genuine fear that
if Frank were foimd "not guilty" the mob would lynch him
and his lawyers.

Endnotes

1. From C. P. Connolly's The Truth About the Frank Case,

Chafter4

THE VERDICT

Through the blistering days of summer the trial unfolded
amidst the very real presence of an anti- Jewish mob
spirit. The streets were thronged with people demanding
the conviction of "the damned Jew." The crowd, some
aUegedly armed, applauded, jeered, and laughed through-
out the trial. Judge Roan had made repeated, but timid,
efforts to maintain a semblance of order.

Spectators in the courtroom sat directly behind the ju-
rors. The jury could surely feel the palpable presence and
sentiment of the crowd. Because of the heat, the windows
in the city hall building were open and the heads of people
standing in the street were practically level with the sills of
these open windows. A group of men sat on the roof of a
shed outside the window just ten feet behind the judge and
the witness chair. "The mob was breathing vengeance in
the very face of the judge and jury."

Near the end of the month-long trial, Frank's lawyers
petitioned the court for a mistrial on the grounds of these
various demonstrations — to no avail.

The emotions of the crowd had been stirred by persistent
rumors and newspaper sensationalism. It was claimed, for
example, that the tenets of the Jewish faith forbid the
violation of a Jewess but condoned the rape of a Christian

51

52 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

woman. Charges were made of Jewish money buying influ-
ence in Georgia.

Results of the southern baseball league and the standing
of the Atlanta Cracker team were the only bits of news
available to the jurors during the course of the Mary Phagan
murder trial. The Crackers had a chance to overtake the
Mobile Gulls and win their third pennant for the Gate City.

Once they were charged with deliberating a verdict, each
jurist took a solemn oath never to reveal what transpired in
the juryroom. Friendships that would last a lifetime, with
anticipation of periodic reunions, were reported to have
sprung up during the thirty days the twelve men were
together. The jurors learned to call each other by nickname
and, according to The Atlanta Constitution^ these nicknames
evoked laughter almost everywhere. A. H. Henslee was
called "Big Newt," after Newt Lee and J. F. Higdon was
dubbed "Luther Rosser," from the redoubtable defense
attorney in the case. "Judge Roan" was the name chosen for
W. M. Jeffries while J. T. Ozburn was "Christopher Coliun-
bus Barrett," after the discoverer of the blood spots in the
"metal" room. Dr. David Marx's title went to Frederick Van
L. Smith. Fred Winbum was called "John Black," after the
city detective whom Luther Rosser cross-examined so
fiercely, and M. S. Woodward was known as "Litde Newt."

Descriptions of nicknames and close friendship, however,
stand in sharp contrast to the reports of a terrorized jury.
One juror, for example, reportedly said that unless the jury
convicted Frank they would never get home alive. The spirit
of the jury seemed very much in keeping with that of the
mob, which seethed about the city hall building for the
month-long trial.

At four minutes to five o'clock on. Monday, August 25,
1913, this jury of Frank's peers filed back into the city hall
courtroom. After four weeks of the greatest legal battle in
Georgia history, a verdict had been reached in four hours.
The courtroom had been cleared of morbidly curious on-
lookers. Only the newspaper men. Sheriff Mangum, his

The Verdict 53

deputies, Solicitor Dorsey and Frank Hooper, and a few
lawyers and close personal friends of the defendant were
present. By not having Leo Frank present in his court at the
time the verdict was rendered, Judge Roan had taken an
"absolutely extraordinary^' judicial step. Today, this move in
itself would be grounds for a new trial. It would be a
violation of constitutionally guaranteed due process of law.

A hush fell over that courtroom in Adanta. With a
trembling voice. Foreman Winburn read the verdict aloud:
"Guilty!'' The verdict was called out over the telephones to
the three Adanta newspapers. Word of the decision reached
the street below almost immediately and a shout erupted
from the waiting crowds. Hats went flying into the air and
women wept and shrieked. The news of the verdict was
chalked up on the scoreboard of a baseball game, and a
wild demonstration of approval ignited in the bleachers.
The end had come to the longest criminal trial in Georgia's
history. Over the pandemonium outside the windows, the
judge thanked the jury for their "faithfiil service and consid-
eration of all details in this most arduous case."

When Solicitor Dorsey emerged from the city hall build-
ing, three muscular men swung him onto their shoulders
and passed him over the heads of the crowd to his office
across the street. With hat raised and tears streaming down
his cheeks, the Solicitor of Fulton County looked on as the
crowds wildly proclaimed its admiration.

It was more than fifty minutes before Frank, together
with his wife at the Tower, learned of the verdict. Dr.
Rosenberg, the Frank family physician, broke the sad news.
Rabbi Marx was with the doctor. "My God!" Frank said,
"even the jury was influenced by mob law. I am as innocent
as I was one year ago." Lucille Frank wept, then fainted.

Three minutes after Foreman Fred Winburn annoimced
the verdict in the trial. The Atlanta Constitution "Extra" hit
the streets.

In the early morning hours of the following day, Joe
McNeely, a black man, was taken from the Good Samaritan

54 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina, and shot to death
by a mob of several hundred men. McNeely had been
accused of shooting and mortally wounding a policeman
named L. L. Wilson.

That same Tuesday, Newt Lee was given his freedom.
His attorneys made an appeal in the newspapers on the old
man's behalf for clothes, provisions, and a job. Lee's wife
had left him, and his house was empty.

Leo Frank was brought before Judge Roan on Tuesday,
August 26, and sentenced. The defendant was to "be by the
Sheriff of Fulton County hanged by the neck until he shall
be dead'' between the hours of 10:00 A.M. and 2:00 P.M.
on October 10, 1913. The accused pleaded his innocence
once again. His defense counsel immediately filed a motion
for a new trial, basing their petition on the grounds that
several popular demonstrations heard by the jurymen dur-
ing the trial prejudiced the case. A hearing for arguments
on that motion was set by Roan for October 4. The original
motion for a new trial was amended and that motion was
heard on October 31, but the amended motion was over-
ruled the very same day.

Jim Conley, an accessory after the fact to the murder by
his own testimony, was still in jail. He would be convicted
in February 1914 and serve a one-year sentence on a chain
gang.

The Mennonite^ a religious weekly journal of the Mennon-
ite General Conference^ of North America, carried a brief
article about Frank's sentencing. Published by the Mennon-
ite Book Concern of Berne, Indiana, this weekly journal
was devoted to the interests of the Mennonite Church and
the cause of Christ in general. The Mennonite is the only
Christian magazine known to have mentioned anything
about Frank's sentencing.

A fellow graduate of Frank's at Cornell University called
upon alumni of that school to join in clearing his name.
Letters of appeal were sent out to former Cornell grads
recalling Frank's excellent undergraduate record.

The Verdict 55

The Jews of Adanta and die surrounding countryside
were naturally affected by the trial of Leo Frank. David
Davis, a Jewish resident of the Gate City for the eight years
preceding the Frank trial, which included the racial riots of
1906, says that a great upsurge of anti-Semitism followed
in the wake of the preliminary police investigation into the
murder of Mary Phagan.

'The Adanta race riot, which began on September 22,
1906, was the most serious disturbance of the peace in
Fulton County since the War Between the States."

A series of black assaults against white women triggered
the riot. These attacks began in late 1905 and continued
into the following year. Violence erupted on the night of
September 22 after the press sensationalized four assaults
that occurred that day. The bloodletting ceased only after
four days. Two whites and ten blacks were dead and seventy
people were wounded. James Woodward was mayor of
Adanta at the time. Another contributing factor was the
intensely heated Georgia gubernatorial campaign that year
(1906). The two leading candidates, Hoke Smith and Clark
Howell, were both Atiantans. Clark Howell had become
editor-in-chief of the Atlanta Constitution in 1897. The
issue dividing the two men concerned the most effective
way to keep blacks away from the ballot box.

In view of the smoldering racial unrest in Adanta, which
was still present during the investigative stages of their
client's case, it would seem that Frank's lawyers were remiss
in not seeking a change of venue for the trial. Moving the
location several hundred miles from Fulton County, to
Savannah perhaps, might have helped defiise some of the
public fervor. But the defense counsel was perhaps overcon-
fident. Their client was, after all, a businessman of unblem-
ished character, whereas the State's witness had a history of
drunkenness and incarceration. But most important, Jim
Conley was a black man, and no court in the South had
ever convicted a white man on the testimony of a black.
Conley proved himself to be an able adversary during

56 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Luther Rosser's cross-examination. Jim was street-smart; he
had been in court before and knew how to handle himself.
Rosser's failure to crack Conle/s testimony after sixteen
hours of cross-examination simply reinforced the credibility
of the State's witness.

The points on which the State of Georgia built its case
against Leo Frank went like this. Frank admitted to being
the last person to see Mary Phagan alive. The girl never left
the National Pencil Factory that Memorial Day but was
killed on the second floor in the "metal" room near Frank's
office. Frank dictated the murder notes to Jim Conley, who
helped Frank take the body to the basement. Finally, the
factory superintendent had been very nervous the Sunday
after the killing. Though the charge of rape was never
brought against him, testimony from the State's star witness
portrayed Frank as a degenerate 'Svomanizer."

The defense probably frustrated both judge and jury that
hot summer by parading about 200 character witnesses into
court on Frank's behalf. Frank's lawyers failed to vigorously
pursue the forensic angle of the case. The Atianta bacteri-
ologist admitted later that he had discovered no resem-
blance between the strands of hair on the lathe in the
factory's "metal" room and the hair of the dead girl. But
the defense's most serious mistake was in not making a
motion for mistrial at the time of crowd interference in the
proceedings. This fact was brought out later in the Supreme
Court record. Hence, Frank's lawyers bear at least partial
responsibility for the outcome of the Phagan murder trial.

Leo Frank's trial in the United States has been compared
with the Mendel Beilis blood libel trial in Russia and the
Dreyfiis Affair in France. There are some similarities in the
anti-Semitism, the world-wide attention given these trials,
and the Jewish responses. As early as March 1914, Rabbi
Henry Berkowitz likened Frank to Beilis in a sermon deliv-
ered in Philadelphia. On the basis of circumstantial evi-
dence, Menahem Mendel Beilis^, a Jew, was accused of
murdering a twelve-year-old Gentile boy named Andre

The Verdia 57

Yushchinsky near Kiev, Russia. The boy's mutilated body
had been discovered in a cave on the outskirts of the city.
The right-wing monarchist press immediately accused the
Jews of killing the child to use his blood in religious rites.

Under the direction of M. Minschuk, Kiev police author-
ities discovered considerable evidence that the boy had been
killed by a gang of thieves. Yet the chief district attorney,
pressured by anti-Semitic elements, disregarded the police
report and insisted on pursuing the blood libel against the
Jews. Beilis was arrested on July 21, 1911 and sent to
prison, remaining there two years before being brought to
trial. Minschuk was condemned to prison for one year for
manufacturing evidence to protect the Jews.

The government of Czar Nicholas 11 attempted to use
Mendel Beilis to implicate the entire Jewish people in the
charge of ritual murder. The case attracted worldwide
attention and provoked international protest (see The New
lork Times^ October 19, 1913). Beilis' trial finally took place
from September 25 through October 25, 1913, and he was
acquitted of the murder of Andre Yushchinsky.

In the celebrated Dreyfus Affair, there are similarities to
the Frank case, too. In 1894, a French army officer named
Alfred Dreyfiis, a Jew, was arrested on charges of selling
French military secrets to the Germans — ^treason! For this
alleged crime he was court-martialed and sent to the penal
colony on Devil's Island, off the coast of French Guiana.
Anti-Semitic journalists launched a systematic campaign
against the Jews, focusing on Captain Dreyfus. Common
to Jews on all sides of the Dreyfus issue was a strong
reaffirmation of their French patriotism. Captain Dreyfus
was officially found innocent of all charges in 1906.

Before the 1880s, the anti-Semitic movement in France
did not have popular support. When UUnion Generale
bank crashed in 1882, the disaster was linked to Jewish
financial manipulation. Edouard Drumont's two volume
work. La France Juive (French Jew) ^ was published in 1886.
The Jews, Drumont argued, were members of an inferior

58 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

race who had made themselves the masters of modem
France. This author, a leader in the French anti-Semitic
movement, blended traditional Christian anti-Semitism
with racial discrimination.

The political machinations of the French military and
Ministry of War in the Dreyfus case, as with the czarist
involvement in the Beilis case, distinguish it from the Leo
Frank affair. Other than the two appeals heard before the
Supreme Court of the United States on Frank's behalf and
the writ of habeas corpus petition filed in United States
District Court, the United States government was not
involved in the Frank case.

Forty-six years after Judge Roan sentenced Leo Frank to
die for the murder of Mary Phagan, A. L. Henson pub-
lished an obscure book called Confessions of a Criminal
Lawyer. As a young man, Allen Henson had assisted the
prosecuting attorney and his staff in the preparation of
briefs for the Leo Frank appeal cases to be heard in U.S.
District Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. He had read
and analyzed every line of testimony from the original trial.
And Henson recounted the way by which Judge Roan made
up his mind not to grant a new trial for Leo Frank. William
Smith, Jim Conle/s attorney, had stopped by to see Judge
Roan. Mr. Smith told the judge that the "verdict was only
the echo of an angry mob!"

Smith went on to divulge his client's story. Jim Conley
went to the pencil factory on Memorial Day expecting to
be alone most of the time. He was to watch until Newt Lee
came on duty as watchman about six o'clock. Conley had
arranged for a man to bring him some corn whiskey at the
factory. The whiskey was delivered at the door leading to
the alley from the basement. Jim took some deep drinks
and soon drained the bottle. Later, when his mind was
clouded he saw a girl come into the factory. Conley
followed her, and she screamed. They struggled and
Jim remembered that he fought back. Then his mind
went blank. Sometime later he remembered being in the

The Verdia 59

basement. "He looked around and there was the girl, lying
still, with a cord around her neck. He looked at her a long
time and decided she was dead. He was scared. He didn't
wait for Newt Lee, the nightwatchman, but hid the body
the best he could, and left by the alley entrance.''

Together, Judge Roan and William Smith concluded that
this version of Conley's story was the truth. The judge was
determined to grant the motion for a new trial. But he was
also concerned about a widespread violent mob reaction to
his decision. So, on the advice of a judicial associate (Judge
Foster), Leonard Roan denied the motion for a new trial
on October 31, 1913. By letting the case nm its course
through the appellate process. Judge Roan hoped the public
excitement would subside. The governor of Georgia could,
at a later date, decide on the case.

A letter signed by Judge Roan in December 1914 con-
firms his doubts of the original verdict in the Frank case.
"... I allowed the jury's verdict to remain undisturbed," he
wrote, "I had no way of knowing it was erroneous."

Shortly after Leo Frank's trial. Rabbi David Marx went
to New York City to consult with Louis Marshall, president
of the American Jewish Committee. The AJC was estab-
lished in 1906 to aid Jews "in all countries where their civil
or religious rights were endangered or denied." Rabbi Marx
felt that Leo Frank's conviction was the result of an anti-
Semitic outburst. The executive committee of the AJC
considered the Frank issue for the first time on November
8, 1913, but resolved to take no official action. The AJC did
not want to be perceived as championing the cause of a Jew
convicted of a crime]

Although Louis Marshall counseled caution, he did not
object to Jewish organizations giving "unpublicized assis-
tance." Marshall's plan was to use the influence of important
people to persuade southern newspapers to change public
opinion in favor of Frank. In January 1914, Louis Marshall
brought the Frank case to the attention of New lork Times'
publisher Adolph Ochs, who rose to Frank's defense.

60 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Marshall also provided legal assistance and public relations
advice to Frank's attorneys.

The AJC president later prepared and delivered the sec-
ond appeal of Frank's case to the United States Supreme
Court, arguing that Frank had been deprived of his consti-
tutional rights under the due process clause of the Four-
teenth Amendment to the Constitution. Frank, he argued,
had not been in the courtroom when the verdict was
rendered.

By 1914, many prominent American Jews, including
Albert D. Lasker, Julius Rosenwald, and Jacob H. SchifF
were providing money, time, and talent in support of
Frank. As a result, the allegation circulated throughout
Georgia that Frank's defense counsel used Jewish money to
purchase influence. Georgia's establishment historian Lu-
cian Lamar Knight wrote in 1917 that "the entire Hebrew
population of America was believed to be an organized unit
directing and financing a systematic campaign to mold
public sentiment and to snatch Frank from the clutches of
the law." But for American Jews to have ignored Frank
would imply that Jews could be maligned and mistreated
with impunity.

Unlike the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish com-
munity in California believed that Frank was a victim of
blatant anti-Semitism. The California Jewish commimity
(two percent of that state's population in 1915), felt that
only a "massive popular campaign" would aid Frank's cause.
Other Jewish individuals and communities openly attacked
the Frank verdict in defiance of the wishes of Marshall and
the AJC.

But Adanta's Jewish commimity did not, in fact, assume
an active role on Frank's behalf In the South, Jews were
not anxious to attract attention for fear of bringing on
displays of anti-Semitism. It was rare for Jews to support
publicly controversial issues; they were very conscious of
their image in the eyes of Christians. On the other hand, in
1914, a Civic Education League was established in Adanta

The Verdia 61

by five Jewish lawyers. This organization was intended to
raise the Jews' civic consciousness and encourage them to
fulfill previously neglected obligations: to petition for citi-
zenship, vote, serve on juries, and seek public office. Com-
batting civic apathy was seen as a means of bolstering the
Jewish community's security.

Although there were random newspaper comments on
the Frank case outside the South in 1913, it was not until
the spring of 1914 that Frank's conviction became a na-
tional issue. But when it did, the majority of the nation's
major metropolitan daily newspapers rose to Frank's de-
fense. The controversy centered around whether the jury
had convicted Frank because of legitimate evidence or
because of intimidation by the mob atmosphere. The case
became a cause celebre, nearly matching public interest
shown in the Sacco-Vanzetti case of the 1920s and the
ordeal of the Scottsboro boys in the 1930s.^

The Frank case provided the first issue of national interest
in which the concerns of blacks and Jews seemed in direct
conflict. To the question: Did Frank, a Jew, kill a Christian
girl or did Conley, a black, kill a white girl, the national
newspapers focused on the latter.

Leo Frank, the Jew, was treated as a white man unjustiy
convicted of a crime "typically" committed by blacks. The
theme of the "black monster," as the New Ibrk Times char-
acterized Conley in March 1914, appeared in such major
papers as the Baltimore Sun^ Chicago Tribune^ and Washinff-
ton Post,

In reading the nation's press of 1914-1915, black Amer-
icans understandably felt that whites were again looking for
a black scapegoat. By 1915, the system of segregation,
known as Jim Crow, was firmly established and the efforts
to substitute a black man for Leo Frank seemed but one
more example of blacks being victimized by whites.

With the exception of the Frank case, there was litde
general hostility towards Jews by the black leaders of the
early twentieth century. Black leadership included such men

62 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. DuBois (founder of
Phylon^ the Atlanta University review of race and religion),
and James Weldon Johnson, executive secretary of the Na-
tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP).

According to Eugene Levy, Jim Conley was not made a
hero by the black press, but it was thought that he told the
truth in his courtroom testimony. The black papers had no
desire to see Frank hanged by the State of Georgia, nor did
they wish to see a miscarriage of justice. But it was nonethe-
less felt that efforts by such reputable papers as the New
lork Times and Chicago Tribune to pin the murder of Mary
Phagan on Jim Conley, because he was black, should be
viewed with contempt. The only black editor who rejected
Jim Conley's story and endorsed Frank's appeal for a new
trial was Benjamin Davis oi^iat Atlanta Independent^ a black
weekly that began publication in 1903.

The Seventh U.S. Census^ estimated that there were 500
slaves in Atlanta in 1850. The first long-term contacts
between Jews and blacks in Atlanta were between masters
and slaves. At the end of the Civil War, all city ordinances
that discriminated on the basis of race were repealed. Blacks
were given the right to vote in Atlanta in 1868, the same
year the State of Georgia expelled all blacks from its legis-
lature. The Gate City's population in 1890 was over forty
percent black; at the turn of the century that figure had
decreased slightly, but ten years later the proportion of
blacks in Atlanta's population had decreased to one-third.

Relations between the Jewish and black commvmities
were normally cordial, although there were resentments and
frustrations. Blacks tended to deflect local prejudices, which
might otherwise have been directed against Jews.

Discussion of the Frank case in Jewish newspapers re-
volved around the extent and significance of anti-Semitism
during the trial and its aftermath. The character and race of
James Conley were of less concern to editors of Jewish
papers than their counterparts on the metropolitan dailies

The Verdict 63

or on black newspapers. However, the Jewish papers (in-
cluding the Boston Jewish Advocate^ the Pittsburgh Jewish
Criterion^ The Jewish Worlds the St, Louis Jewish Voice^ and the
Cincinnati American Israelite) frequendy reprinted anti-
Conley editorials from the daily papers.

While the case was attracting attention across the coun-
try, Leo Frank's attorneys were busy preparing appeals.

Endnotes

1. In 1910, there were only about 54,000 Mennonites in this country,
and they were split into 1 1 groups.

2. See Paul Mendes-Flohr's and Jehuda Rcinharz's edited work. The
Jew in the Modem World.

3. Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti had been tried and con-
viaed for murder and robbery in Braintree, Massachusetts in 1921.
There was widespread belief that the conviction had been influenced by
the men's reputations as radicals. Public outcry forced a review of the
case, even though a new trial was never granted. An advisory group to
the state governor upheld the judicial procedure and the two were
executed on August 27, 1927. Sacco and Vanzetti were widely regarded
as martyrs.

On March 31, 1931, nine black youths were indicted for the rape of
two white girls. After several trials and two U.S. Supreme Court reversals
of conviaion, five of the youths were conviaed and sentenced, and four
acquitted. Northern liberals and radicals charged anti-black bias in
Alabama and made the case a cause celdbre. The Scottsboro Defense
Committee, representing primarily liberal, non-Communist organiza-
tions, was largely responsible for ultimately freeing the young men.

4. The first census conduaed in the country was in 1790.

Chapters

THE APPEALS

In their effort to win a new trial for their client, Leo
Frank's defense attorneys stressed the procedural irregu-
larities that regularly took place during the court proceed-
ings. The defense submitted affidavits attesting to the al-
leged prejudice of two of the jurors towards the defendant.
They also submitted affidavits from Adanta residents who
witnessed the trial and attested to the fact that the jurymen
had heard the crowds outside the courtroom windows and
had seen the public demonstrations.

Arguing for the State, Solicitor Dorsey and Attorney
Hooper maintained that justice had been upheld. Judge
Roan, as we have seen, denied the defense motion at the
end of October 1913, although he stated that he was not
thoroughly convinced of Leo Frank's guilt. His doubt arose
from the character of the State's main witness, Jim Conley.
But Judge Roan felt the jury had been certain Frank was
guilty.

The judge's uncertainty provided a solid plank on which
the defense built its next platform of appeal. A new trial
was taken on writ of error to the Georgia Supreme Court
by Luther Rosser and Reuben Arnold. Under a constitu-
tional amendment adopted in 1906, the state supreme court
was not permitted to reverse any capital case where no error

65

66 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

of law had been committed in the trial. The weakness of
evidence presented in a given case was viewed as irrelevant.
The Georgia Supreme Court also could not investigate a
case nor pass judgment upon a defendant's guilt or inno-
cence. Its jurisdiction was confined strictly to matters of the
law. Colonel Thomas Felder, the new attorney general, and
Hugh Dorsey presented the State's case. On February 17,
1914, the court returned a judgment denying a new trial.

That same month, Frank's defense counsel asked the
noted detective, William J. Bums, to assist them in their
continuing investigation of the Phagan murder. The Bums
Detective Agency in Atlanta had been involved in the
Phagan murder investigation back in 1913, but William
Bums himself had not gone to Atlanta to participate in the
proceedings.^

While appeals were being prepared and investigations
being carried out, Leo Frank was in the Fulton County jail
in a barred cell measuring six-by-eight-feet. He kept a card-
file index of everything printed about himself and the
Phagan case. He had access to all the Atlanta and most of
the southern newspapers. When interviewed by the Atlanta
Georgian in late Febmary 1914, he was wearing a neat, dark
business suit, dark patent leather shoes, and a dark four-in-
hand tie. His bed had a homemade quilt on it, and his cell
had a table and chair.

In a telegram to the editor of the New lark Times ^ Charles
D. McKinney, acting secretary-manager of the Georgia
Chamber of Commerce, declared that "Atlanta and the
whole State of Georgia not only have no prejudice against
a stranger, but we cordially invite manufacturers and inves-
tors, farmers, and the better clas [sic] of immigrants to
make their homes and engage in business among us."

In March 1914, reports came to light suggesting that
certain evidence presented in the Frank case was obtained
under duress or ignored by the police authorities. Mr. W. J.
Jenkins and his wife alleged that Detective John Black had
tried to induce their daughter Lulu Belle to give false

The Appeals 67

testimony against Leo Frank. The police reportedly bribed
and threatened the girl. An affidavit issued by the news-
paper delivery boy, George Epps, contained a denial of the
boy's courtroom testimony. At the trial, Epps said that he
caught the same street car as Mary Phagan and swore to the
exact time of his actions. Epps claimed in the new affidavit
that Detective Black coached him on exactly what to say.

Mrs. J. B. Simmons said she was not called to the stand
because her testimony did not fit with the State's theory of
the Phagan murder. While walking by the National Pencil
Factory at about 2:30 P.M. the day of the murder, Mrs.
Simmons claims she heard screams. Hugh Dorsey allegedly
had tried to have the woman change the time in her story
to 3:00 P.M. because Frank was not in the building at 2:30.
He had gone home for some lunch.

Ruby Snipes, a seventeen-year-old white girl, swore that
Jim Conley had attempted to attack her in April of 1911.
In another sworn statement, Mrs. Hattie Miller, a young
Atlanta woman, said that she had been offered $1,000 to
testify falsely against Frank at his trial.

It was not until March 1914 that Christian clergymen
went on record concerning the Frank case — although pre-
sumably Christian pastors and priests discussed the case
prior to that time. In a letter to the editor of the Atlanta
Journal^ Reverend C. B. Wilmer, Rector of St. Luke's Epis-
copal Church in Atlanta, urged that some way be found for
a new trial for the accused. Judicial murder had to be
prevented. Dr. Wilmer was concerned not so much about
the verdict as with the conditions surrounding the trial. He
commented on the fact that not even the trial judge was
fiilly convinced of Frank's guilt.

St. Luke's had been established during the Civil War by a
chaplain in the Confederate army. Dr. Wilmer was called in
1900 and served as pastor until his resignation in 1924.
"He never hesitated to champion the cause of the down-
trodden and oppressed."

The pastor of Mary Phagan's Bible school. Dr. L. O.

68 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Bricker, admitted that he, along with many others, were in
such a state of mind during Frank's trial that proper exercise
of judgment and decision was not possible. 'This state of
affairs reached a point that charged the very atmosphere of
the courtroom with prejudice. An unbiased trial was impos-
sible.''

Dr. A. R. Holderly, pastor of the Moore Memorial
Church in Atlanta, told his congregation that it would be
"unfair to hang a sheep-killing dog upon the evidence upon
which Frank has been convicted." Reverend Julian S. Rodg-
ers, of the East Atlanta Baptist Church, spoke in favor of a
new trial for Leo Frank during his sermon on March 15,
1914.

The Rome Tribune and The Albany Herald^ both news-
papers of Georgia, ran editorials in March 1914 urging that
a new trial be held so that justice could prevail. The
sentiment in favor of granting Frank a new trial seemed to
be growing, as evidenced by the flood of letters from
Georgia to the New lork Times in the spring of 1914.

And one of the twelve men who had been on the jury
during Frank's trial finally replied to the calls from Atlanta
pulpits for a new trial for the defendant. J. T. Ozburn
argued that the jury had heard all the testimony and had
suiBficient intelligence and honesty to weigh the evidence
without prejudice. The ministers attacking the Frank verdict
are "holier-than-thou gentlemen," said Ozburn.

On March 22, two more Atlanta pastors issued strong
demands for a new trial. Reverend F. A. Lines, of the First
Universalist Church, devoted his entire sermon to the Frank
case. Mob conditions had surrounded the trial, he charged,
and in convicting the defendant the jury had responded to
the pressure of the crowds. 'The Church, the Christian
people of this city and State are on trial."

That same Sunday a leading Atlanta clergyman. Reverend
G. L. Hickman, talked about a new trial for Leo Frank in
the prelude to his morning sermon: "If Leo M. Frank is

MARY PHAGAN. The little girl found murdered at the National Pencil
Factory. (Atlanta Journal 3c Atlanta Constitution)

NATIONAL PENCIL FACTORY. The building at 37-41 South
Forsyth Street in Atlanta which was home to the National Pencil Factory.
(Atlanta Journal 8c Atlanta Constitution)

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ARTHUR MULLINAX. A streetcar conductor arrested in connection
with the murder of Mary Phagan, Arthur Mullinax was soon released by
police. (Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

PRETTY YOUNG VICTIM AND THE SITE OF HER
MURDER. (Atlanta Journal Sc Atlanta Constitution)

MARY PHAGAN'S FAMILY AND BLOOMFIELD'S UNDER-
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(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

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(Atlanta Journal & Atlanta Constitution)

MARIETTA MOURNS ITS LOSS.

(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

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HELD ON SUSPICION OF MURDER. Factory superintendent
Leo Frank was held by police on suspicion of murder.
(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

TWO WITNESSES IN THE CORONER'S INQUEST. Miss Daisy
Jones and George W. Epps were called before Coroner Paul Donehoo.
(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

PRAISES JURY

JUDGE LEONARD STRICKLAND ROAN. Judge Roan served as
the trial judge in the Phagan murder case.
(Atlanta Journal 8c Atlanta Constitution)

THE ATTORNEYS. Far left: Sketch of defense attorney Luther Z.
Rosser. Top row, left to right: Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey and
Reuben Arnold, lawyer for Leo Frank. Bottom row, left to right: Frank
A. Hooper, aiding the prosecution, along with Assistant Solicitor General
E. A. Stephens. (Atlanta Journal 8c Atlanta Constitution)

FRED WINBURN,
JURY FOREMAN.

(Atlanta Joutnal &
Atlanta Constitution)

REPF^ENTING STATE M

t -tt <.. .-;..lrt- <.^M^iu^r i:^n,^'r-.\ (4.><*h \f I

FOR THE PROSECUTION. Hugh Dorsey, E. A. Stephens, and
Frank Hooper represented the State of Georgia against Leo Frank.
(Atlanta Journal & Atlanta Constitution)

a
o

B

3

Ph

■fi

I

* p

THE PHAGAN WOMEN.

(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

- • t ■ ^' -^K^^'^'v^v^™ - '- - ■ -■ ^ . „.

,^^^J^J^KJb:JM pJLojs^

' '\J. .X%\^^''-^

mm- '^ifikr-^A,

a

II I Jfc w

THE MURDER NOTES.

These two notes were found
near Little Mary Phagan's
strangled body. Jim Conley
testified that he wrote them
at Mr. Frank's instruction.
(Georgia Department of Arc-
hives and History; Slaton
Collection; ACit^ 00-070)

LEO AND LUCILLE FRANK AT THE TRL\L.

(Atlanta Journal & Atlanta Constitution)

The Appeals 69

innocent, give him a fair chance to prove that he is innocent.
If he is guilty, let him pay the penalty."

The Frank case was also on the agenda at the Fortieth
District Convention of the Independent Order of B'nai
B'rith held in Atlanta on March 30.

The efforts of Leo Frank's defense counsel to secure a
new^ trial through appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court
had been damaged by the retracted affidavits from Reverend
C. B. Ragsdale and his parishioner, Mr. R. L. Barber.
Ragsdale, a Baptist minister, and Barber had sv^orn that
they overheard a black man identified as Jim Conley cohfess
that he had murdered Mary Phagan. Later, they changed
their statements. Attorney Reuben Arnold obtained an
order from Judge Ben H. Hill striking from the motion for
a new^ trial the amendment establishing the Ragsdale affi-
davit as a part of the grounds for a new^ hearing. Judge Hill
sat in the Criminal Division of Fulton County Superior
Court.

His initial affidavit was a deliberate "frame-up," Ragsdale
claimed, and went on the charge that he had been bribed
with several hundred dollars. But Luther Rosser and Reu-
ben Arnold insisted the pastor's testimony had been volun-
teered freely. Reverend Ragsdale resigned his pastorate and
reftised to be interviewed on the subject.

During the last week of April I9I4, the Nhp lork Times
published a letter written by Leo Frank to the "People of
Atlanta." Frank was incensed that Chief Newport Lanford,
head of the detective department, could serenely announce
that the charge of perversion had never entered into the
case. That charge had been the very thing which was the
driving force in his road to the gallows, Frank maintained.
He asked if his case should not be reconsidered now that
the perversion "charges" had been dropped. Was he to be
hanged on the word of a "creature" such as Conley? "Is it
possible that my life of decency is to weigh as nothing?"

A motion was filed in the Superior Court of Fulton
County on April 16, I9I4, to set aside the verdict against

70 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Leo Frank. Judgment was rendered against Frank on June
6. The Supreme Court of Georgia affirmed that judgment
five months later, after the lower court's decision had been
taken up the appellate ladder on a writ of error.

During the summer of 1914, national attention was
focused on the gathering war clouds in Europe. By sum-
mer's end, the Allies were at war with the Central Powers.

Leo Frank's defense counsel now directed their appeal to
the nation's capital. Application for a writ of error to review
the Georgia Supreme Court's judgment was made to
Justices Joseph Rucker Lamar and Oliver Wendell Holmes
of the United States Supreme Court. Counsel premised
their petition on the fact that Frank had been absent from
the courtroom at the rendering of the verdict. Both justices
denied the application, although Holmes was not convinced
that Frank had received due process of law in light of the
threatening crowds.

The defense then petitioned to be heard by the entire
Court. Their request was granted, but the appeal was
refused on December 7, 1914, and was not accompanied
by any written opinion.

Leo Frank then petitioned to the U.S. District Court of
Northern Georgia to discharge him from custody. U.S.
District Judge William T. Newman denied the writ of
habeas corpus four days before Christmas, in 1914.

In October of the same year an extremely promising
development occurred. William M. Smith, the lawyer who
had represented Jim Conley during the Frank trial, an-
nounced that he was ready to join forces with the defense.
In a public statement. Smith unequivocally called Jim Con-
ley the murderer. Conley, then working in the Bellwood
convict camp, seemed indifferent to this new development.
In February 1915, a second and final appeal was made to
the U.S. Supreme Court. And it was Louis Marshall, lawyer
and president of the American Jewish Committee, who
prepared the defense brief Bom in Syracuse, New York, to
German Jewish immigrants, Marshall graduated from Co-

The Appeals 71

Ivimbia University Law School in 1876 and was admitted to
the New York bar in 1878. Although he had maintained a
low profile in the Frank affair, he played a very significant
role in assisting and supervising Leo Frank's defense coim-
sel and in arguing the second appeal of the Frank case
before the Supreme Court of the United States^ (237 U.S.
309): LeoM. Franks Appellant v. C. Wheeler Mangumy Sheriff
of Fulton County y Ga. Marshall was assisted by Henry C.
Peeples and Henry A. Alexander; Attorney General Warren
Grice and Solicitor General Hugh M. Dorsey represented
the State of Georgia.

Mr. Marshall built the defense around the hostile atmos-
phere surrounding the trial, Frank's absence from the court-
room at the time the verdict was rendered, and the mob
action after the verdict had been delivered. Solicitor Dorsey
announced that if Leo Frank obtained his freedom from the
Supreme Court, he would attempt to have Frank indicted
by the grand jury on one or two other charges, namely,
criminal assault and perversion. The aura of perversion
hung over the entire Frank case. The Jew from Brooklyn
was viewed and portrayed as different from other men. Tom
Watson's "Jew pervert" was a powerful image. According to
one New York magazine, during the entire appeal process a
mob in the Atlanta area kept up its threats and heightened
the level of tension.

On April 19, 1915, the Court rejected^ the defense
motion, 7-to-2. In stating the dissenting viewpoint.
Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.^ and Charles Evans
Hughes clearly recognized and deplored the influence of
the mob during Frank's trial. Justice Holmes wrote that ^Sve
think the presumption overwhelming that the jury re-
sponded to the passions of the mob."^

Later (in Moore v. Dempsey; 261 U.S. 86), the Court
found for defendants, who had grounds for defense similar
to those of the Frank case. The accused included Frank
Moore, Ed Hicks, and J. E. Knox, all black men. E. J.

72 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Dempsey was Keeper of the Arkansas State Penitentiary.
The legal brief for this case is dated October 1922.

Georgia law permitted one iSnal recourse for Leo Frank's
defense attorneys, namely, to petition Governor John Sla-
ton for clemency through the Georgia State Prison Com-
mission. From the initial date of October 10, 1913, Frank's
execution had been moved first to April 17, 1914, then to
January 22, 1915, and finally to June 22, 1915. And the
pressure on Slaton to commute Frank's sentence was be-
coming more intense every day.

Jews and Christians alike were urged to write to Gover-
nor Slaton asking for executive clemency for Leo Frank.
Dr. Joel Blau, during a talk at the Madison Avenue syna-
gogue in New York in December 1914, contended that 'Sve
Jews are not seeking to shield a criminal." Every Christian
pulpit, he said, ought to speak out on the case.

American Socialist leader Eugene Victor Debs, a five-
time Presidential hopeful, declared that race prejudice made
Leo Frank's trial a farce. "The South is blinded by race
prejudice, one of the inheritances of chattel slavery. ... It is
in this atmosphere and environment that Frank, 'the
damned Jew,' has been railroaded." The U.S. Constitution
had been violated, Debs argued, and its protection denied
a citizen charged with a crime in a prejudiced community.

In a Sunday morning service in Rochester, New York,
held the last week of 1914, Dr. William Rosenau, of
Baltimore, said that in the great American democracy there
is still the occasional outbreak of feeling against the He-
brew. "The Leo M. Frank trial in Atlanta is an example of
this." Rosenau was Vice Chancellor of the Chavitauqua.

The widow of Congressman William H. Felton, Repre-
sentative from Georgia's 7th District, wrote a letter to the
New lork Times printed in mid-January 1915. Mrs. Felton,
then nearly eighty, claimed that "there is no 'Jew-baiting' in
Georgia. . . . Those of Hebrew lineage are most highly
respected in every instance where they are known to be
good citizens. 1 do not forget that the Southern Confeder-

The Appeals 73

acy placed one of its highest positions in the care of Judah
P. Benjamin.''^

By the fall of 1914, although America had not entered
the war in Europe, it was the focus of national attention —
especially after the battle of Ypres, where thousands of men
on both sides were slaughtered. This prompted one New
York magazine to raise this question: At a time when men
are being killed by the thousands in war, why should the
quandary of whether one man lives or dies seem important?
In answer to its question, the magazine said that there are
times when the death of one man may be of more conse-
quence to the future welfare of the human race than the
loss of an entire regiment or army corps. That man was Leo
Frank.

By January of 1915, it was estimated that Governor John
Slaton had received more than fifteen thousand pieces of
correspondence about the case from all over the country,
including a letter from the presiding judge at Frank's trial.
Most of the letters requested that the governor commute
the defendant's sentence. The legislatures of Arizona, Texas,
Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ten-
nessee passed formal resolutions to that effect. Letters were
sent to the governor's office from the president of the
University of Chicago, the dean of Yale College, and future
Nobel laureate, Jane Addams, famous for Hull House in
Chicago. Several state governors and United States senators
also petitioned on Frank's behalf. North Dakota's governor
asked John Slaton to consider commutation in order to buy
time for both Leo Frank and the State of Georgia to throw
new light on the case. The governor of Nevada was con-
vinced that Frank should not suffer the death penalty on
any evidence brought out so far. Nevada's governor wrote
to Governor Slaton on Frank's behalf, although he was
aware that he was violating established ethics of gubernato-
rial conduct. Governors did not, as a rule, interfere in the
internal affairs of another state. But the governor of Arkan-
sas wrote: 'The Jewish people in our state are very solicitous

74 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

about this case, and, if you could see your way clear and
feel that the interests of justice would be served by a
commutation of this sentence to life imprisonment, it
would meet with general approval."

On January 20, 1915, Mrs. J. W. Coleman, mother of
Mary Phagan, filed a damage suit against the National
Pencil Company. She asked for ten thousand dollars for the
death of her daughter. The suit, which named both Leo
Frank and Jim Conley, sought to demonstrate that the
company was responsible for the safety of its employees
while they were on its premises.

That same January day, a mob took a young black man
away from a deputy sheriff and lynched him inside the city
limits of Vicksburg, Mississippi. The victim had been ar-
rested for stealing some cattie.

In March, Judge Leonard Strickland Roan^ died of a
blood clot at Polyclinic Hospital in New York. According to
his relatives the judge made no written or verbal statement
on the Frank case before he died. His brother did not feel
that Roan's illness had been brought on or even aggravated
by the widespread public discussion of the trial and sen-
tence. But Roan's sister claimed he worried about the case
a great deal. And Judge Roan had written from The Berk-
shire Hills Sanitorium in late 1914: "After many months of
continued deliberation I am still uncertain of Frank's guilt."
The letter was addressed to Rosser and Brandon and Reu-
ben R. Arnold, attorneys for Leo Frank.

On Sunday, April 25, 1915, Reverend S. Edward Young
delivered a sermon at the Bedford Presbyterian Church at
Nostrand Avenue and Dean Street, in Brooklyn. The pastor
called for a nationwide appeal on behalf of Leo M. Frank,
using Deuteronomy 19: 10 as the basis for his sermon. That
passage from the Bible reads: "Lest innocent blood be shed
in your land which the Lord your God gives you for
inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you."

The issues involved in the Frank case, said Dr. Ifoung,
"affect the whole country and the vital teachings of religion.

The Appeals 75

. . . The element of incalculable seriousness is the convicting
of any American citizen on account of his race or religion."
The fact that prejudice against the Jew was the real accuser
in the Frank trial must not be tolerated. "Against it cry out
the Old and New Testaments. . . ." Dr. ^ung said that race
prejudice is the worst possible indictment of the Christian
religion, which would seem to imply that Christianity bears
some responsibility for anti- Jewish prejudice.

Evangelist William Ashley "Billy'' Sunday^ also com-
mented on the Frank case during his sermon at the Taber-
nacle, in Paterson, New Jersey, on the night of May 11,
1915. He said that if he were governor of Georgia, Leo
Frank would go free tomorrow. These words brought loud
applause from the crowds.

Mrs. Frank was informed in early May that "petitions are
coming in daily'' to TheMuskojfee Times-Democrat^ a leading
daily newspaper of Oklahoma. That same month. The Illi-
nois State Journal sent her 1,104 "signed cards petitioning
the governor of Georgia to grant a commutation of sen-
tence to your husband." San Francisco's Daily News had
received six thousand petitions from its subscribers. Lucille
Frank worked untiringly to keep her husband from the
gallows. "I beg the American people to save my husband's
life, because he is innocent." — ^was her continuing plea.
"Every bit of evidence produced at the trial," said the
plump, dark-haired Mrs. Frank, "shows completely that my
husband is not guilty. In the end I know his name will be
cleared."

Fifteen thousand petitions for clemency — ^making up a
package weighing 75 pounds — ^were collected from all over
the State of Ohio and delivered to Governor Slaton in mid-
May.

But Governor Slaton hoped and believed he would never
be called on to decide the fate of Leo Frank. In a letter
dated April 28, 1915 to Senator Lawrence Sherman, the
governor wrote: "I retire ... in June, and I doubt if the
case will reach me before that time." He was wrong.

76 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Four judges of the Appellate Court of Chicago signed
petitions urging clemenqr. In addition, a mass meeting
dubbed "Leo M. Frank Day"' was held in the Windy City.
The speakers included three Christian clergymen: the Right
Reverend Samuel Fallows, the Reverend P. J. O'Callaghan,
the Reverend S. J. Siedenberg. Also scheduled to speak was
Clarence Darrow, who would later defend John T. Scopes
at Dayton, Tennessee, in the famous "Monkey Trial" in
1925.

The president of the American Federation of Labor took
time to write to the governor of Georgia: "Frank did not
have a free, fair, impartial trial," wrote Samuel Gompers.
"May I not appeal that your great prerogative be exercised
in commuting the sentence of Leo M. Frank from death to
a life term of imprisonment?"

By now Leo Frank had the support of almost all of
America's major newspapers, including many in the South.
For a time, the coverage of the case challenged the war in
Europe for national attention. And a little eight-year-old
boy named Floyd, from Ohio, wanted to be Leo's friend:
"I want Jesus to let you free," the first-grader wrote, so that
you can "come home an (sic) see your Mama." Little Floyd
sent along one of his arithmetic papers for Mr. Frank to see
because he had been given a "100" on his "numbers." This
was only the second letter the boy had ever written.

But, counteracting the flood of petitions on Frank's
behalf that poured into Governor Slaton's office during
1914 and the first half of 1915 was the "palpable menace of
mob violence," anonymous threats to let Frank die, and
political rewards promised by Thomas E. Watson if Frank's
execution were carried out. The promised rewards were
probably quite tempting to Slaton, who had solicited and
received the former Populist leader's support during the
Georgia gubernatorial race in 1912. According to historian
Charlton Moseley, perhaps no other man in Georgia in the
early twentieth century was more in accord with Ku Klux
Klan principles, particularly that of anti-Catholicism, than

The Appeals 77

Thomas Watson. Watson used his Jeffersonian magazine as a
forum to attack Leo Frank, selling 87,000 copies per week
during the peak of the commutation controversy in June of
1915.

Thomas Edward Watson was born in McDuffie CkDunty,
Georgia. After attending public schools he entered Mercer
University in Macon in 1872. But lack of finances forced
him to leave Mercer in his sophomore year to teach school.
He studied law until admitted to the Georgia bar in 1875
at the age of nineteen. He began his practice in Thomson,
Georgia, where he also published his Jeffersonian magazine.
Watson married Georgia Durham in 1878, and the couple
had two children. By the age of 36, Watson had "forged to
the very front [of the state] as a lawyer and public man." In
1890, he was elected as a national representative to the
Fifty-Second U.S. Congress. He died in September 1922
from an attack of bronchitis and asthma. The Ku Klux Klan
sent a cross of roses eight feet high to his fimeral at
"Hickory Hill."9

Watson's campaign against Frank, staged through the
pages of his Jeffersonian^ was very effective in arousing the
opposition. Typical of the mail it inspired is this letter in
the "John Marshall Slaton Collection" at the Georgia De-
partment of Archives and History from Moultrie M. Ses-
sions to a Mr. Hanford, dated May 17, 1915. Sessions, a
lawyer who lived outside of Atlanta, argued that Leo Frank
indeed deserved to be hung. "All the stuff about race
prejudice was lugged into this case by Frank's own attorneys
for the purpose of muddying the waters," wrote Sessions.
Frank "has gotten up a great deal of false sympathy over the
United States. . . . If Leo M. Frank had not been a 'Jew' he
would have been hung months ago." Leo and Lucille Frank
received a postcard from Charleston, South Carolina, care
of the "Mansion of Aching Hearts," an obvious reference
to Governor Slaton's former home. The face of the postcard
read: "ALL the lies they tell about the Jews are true." The

78 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

word "Dutch" had originally appeared but was crossed out
and "Jews" had been written.

The Georgia Prison Commission met on May 31, 1915,
in special session to hear Frank's appeal for commutation.
The commission and the governor had received a six-page
letter from Jim Conley's lawyer. 'There exists a large num-
ber of the strongest lines of evidence," wrote Attorney
William Smith, that "reveals the error of charging Leo M.
Frank with having any part in the murder of Mary Phagan.
. . . I BELIEVED IT WAS MY DUTY TO SPEAK. I HAD
HELPED TO DESTROY AN INNOCENT MAN. . . .
BEFORE GOD, MY SOLE PURPOSE IS TO UNDO

THE WRONG I HAVE HELPED TO DO With all

the earnestness and seriousness of my life, I appeal to you
not to let him die."

"Poor boy.

He is innocent.

Will you let him die?"

Slaton and the commission also were petitioned by Attor-
ney Arthur Powell on Frank's behalf Ajrthur Powell's part-
ner, Mr. Hooper, had taken part in the prosecution of the
Phagan murder case. During the trial proceedings, Powell
had advised Judge Leonard Roan, at the judge's request.
'Toward the close of the trial he [Judge Roan] sent for me
and told me that his (the judge's) life was being threatened,
that the temper of the crowds about the trial was such that
he believed if the defendant was present at the verdict he
would be lynched and that there was danger to his counsel
if they were present. ... To any critical mind there must be
grave doubt of his guilt."

The vote against clemency was 2-to-l ! Although Frank's
guilt was questioned in the mind of at least one of the
commissioners — ^T. E. Patterson — ^the board refused to rec-
ommend for clemency. Wrote Patterson: "If we take the
evidence of the case outside that of Conley and Leo M.
Frank, we find that both Frank and Conley had equal
opportunity and motive for committing the crime." In his

The Appeals 79

decision, Patterson weighed the letter written by Judge
Roan in which he was still uncertain of Frank's guilt. The
commissioner also pointed to the dissenting opinion of
Chief Justice Fish and Justice Beck of the Georgia Supreme
Court. "In the language of the Supreme Court this case
depends largely upon circumstantial evidence, if not alto-
gether."

Now there was only one last hope for Leo Frank —
commutation of his sentence by the governor.

John Slaton was born in Merriwether County, Georgia,
the son of William Franklin and Nancy Jane (Martin)
Slaton. His father was an educator and the Slatons had a
large family — 2 boys and 4 girls. John graduated with an
M.A. degree in 1886 from the University of Georgia, and
was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1887.

Slaton began the practice of law in Atlanta in 1887 as a
member of the firm of Glenn, Slaton & Phillips. Benjamin
Z. Phillips, a Jewish attorney, was the junior partner. The
firm later became known as Rosser, Slaton & Hopkins.
Luther Rosser later served on Leo Frank's defense counsel.

In 1896, Slaton was elected on the Democratic ticket
from Fulton County to the Georgia House of Representa-
tives. He married Sarah Frances Grant Jackson in 1898; the
couple had no children. Slaton became president of the
Georgia Senate about 1909 and from that position became
governor in 1911, when Governor Hoke Smith resigned to
take a seat in the U.S. Senate. He was elected governor in
1912 and, through re-election, served until June 1915.
Both Hoke Smith^° and John Slaton advocated Progressive
reforms ^^

John Slaton was also chairman of the board of Trinity
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and a member of the
Masons and the Elks.

During the week of June 14, 1915, Governor Slaton held
hearings on the commutation appeal for Leo Frank. That
same week he had to deliver the commencement address at

80 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

the University of Georgia in Athens. And he was also
preparing to leave office.

On Monday of that week, Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey
spoke for three hours opposing commutation. Contending
that the trial evidence was overwhelmingly against the
defendant, Dorsey also pointed to his conviction being
upheld by both the Georgia Supreme Court and the United
States Supreme Court. The case against Frank, according
to Dorsey, was complete even without the testimony of Jim
Conley. To commute Frank's sentence would be to invite
the reign of the mob in Georgia.

Following Dorsey's arguments, the Reverend C. B. Wil-
mer launched a strong appeal for commutation, speaking as
a representative of a committee of ministers. 'The appeal,"
he said, 'Vas not based on mercy." A plea for mercy would
be based on a confession of guilt. 'The appeal which I
make is based on moral grounds and on a sense of justice.
... We appeal against the provincial prejudice which has
been evident against outside interference and against the
prejudice of Gentiles against Jews."

The petition which Reverend Wilmer read^^

appealed for clemency on the grounds that commutation
would not change the jury's verdict or reflect on the Solicitor
or the courts; that a life sentence would vindicate the severity
of the law; that time might disclose new facts about the crime,
and that commutation would be an act both of justice and
humanity.

Because of differing viewpoints among the ministers who
signed this petition, "they had not deemed it advisable to
include appeals additional to those stated."

Pastor Wilmer continued to address the governor:

Several matters have been injeaed into this case which tend to
befog it, and it is with reluctance that I discuss them in public.
A prejudice has been engendered between Jews and Gentiles.
Even if it were true, as charged by some, that the friends of
Frank have done anything of a wrongful character in his behalf.

TheAppeals 81

it would not be something for you to consider in an appeal for
commutation. . . . class prejudice has been brought into this
case — a prejudice between employee and employer. This was
obvious before, during, and since the trial. Then, politics has
been injected into this case; it also should be eliminated.

I wish briefly to refer to the atmosphere of this community
before and during Frank's trial. . . . Even should we admit that
there was no suggestion of violence whatever on the part of
the spectators at the trial, it should be remembered that
psychological influence is far more subtle and far more calcu-
lated to affect the mind of a brave man than mob violence.

Wilmer also questioned the methods of the Atlanta detec-
tives in gathering evidence in the Frank case. This caused
Solicitor Dorsey to reply that the detectives were "as 'good
men as Dr. Wilmer or any other wearer of the cloth in
Atlanta.' " The New Tork Times noted that "Dr. Wilmer has
shown unusual interest in the case. The wife of Governor
Slaton is a communicant of his church."

Meanwhile, mail was continuing to pour into the gover-
nor's oflSce asking the governor to grant clemency. "In the
name of Christ Jesus and for the respect of your high office,
don't have the stain of this man's blood on your hands," a
pastor wrote from New Orleans. Reverend Mackay from
Greensboro, Georgia, pointed out that, "even those who
are firmly convinced of his guilt think that it would be a
terrible risk for the State to inflia the death penalty in view
of the many doubts in the case."

On June 20, 1915, Governor John Slaton made a coura-
geous decision and committed political suicide by commut-
ing Frank's sentence to life imprisonment. The next day he
left office.

Endnotes

1. In an interview with the New Tork Times in December, 1914,
Bums was of the opinion that the "false charge of perversion undoubt-
edly had caused the mob clamor" for Leo Frank's conviction. The

82 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

deteaive had offered a $5,000 reward for anyone who could produce
facts supporting the perversion charge, but no one came forward. Bums
said that every man conneaed with his Atlanta office had been arrested
at one time or another and all fined on the assumption that they were
associated with an unlicensed detective agency. But his agency was
licensed. Bums maintained. He went on to say: "Prejudice against Frank?
It is so strong, so all-embracing, so fostered by the police and those to
whom a reversal of his conviction would be a blow that any person
favoring Frank is a marked man in the city [Adanta]."

2. Members of the Supreme Court at the time Frank's appeal was
considered were Mahlon Pitney, Joseph McKenna, Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., William Rufiis Day, Charles Evans Hughes, Willis Van
Dovanter, Joseph Rucker Lamar, and James Clark McReynolds.

3. The majority opinion was written by Justice Mahlon Pitney. Bom
in 1858 and educated at the College of New Jersey (Princeton), Mahlon
Pitney was eleaed to the U.S. House of Representatives (1895-1899)
and was a member of the New Jersey Senate. He was nominated for the
Supreme Court by President William Taft in 1912. He served on the
Court for ten years, retiring in December 1922. Justice Pitney died in
Washington, D.C., two years later. (See Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court,)

4. Bom in Boston on March 8, 1841, Oliver Wendell Holmes was
the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Amelia Lee (Jackson) Holmes.
His father was a professor of anatomy at Harvard Medical School and
was also a poet, novelist, and essayist of renown. The younger Holmes
graduated from Harvard in 1861 as class poet. He served in the Massa-
chusetts Twentieth Volunteers during the Civil War, being wounded
three times in batde and leaving the army as a captain. Admitted to the
Massachusetts bar in 1867 after completing his legal studies at Harvard
the previous year. Holmes practiced law in Boston for fifteen years.
During that time he also taught constitutional law at his alma mater. In
1882 the governor of Massachusetts appointed Holmes, then a full
professor at Harvard Law School, to a seat as associate justice of die
Massachusetts supreme court. Dr. Holmes served there for twenty years.
Theodore Roosevelt nominated Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. for the United
States Supreme Court in 1902. His twenty-nine years on the Court
spanned the terms of Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding,
Coolidge, and Hoover. Holmes died two days before his 94th birthday
in Washington, D.C., in 1935. He and his wife, Fanny Bowdich Dixwell,
never had any children. She had died in 1929. (See Guide to the U.S.
Supreme Court.)

5. See Appendix 2, Justice Holmes' Dissent.

6. Judah Benjamin, a Jewish lawyer and statesman, was successively
attorney general, secretary of war, and secretary of state of the Southern
Confederate government.

The Appeals 83

7. Leonard Roan, bom in 1849, was the husband of Miss Willie
Strickland from Fairbum, Georgia. They had three sons and two daugh-
ters. The judge was a member of the First Methodist Church in Fairbum.

8. A former major league baseball player, "Billy" Sunday was or-
dained by the Chicago Presbytery in 1903. He proclaimed an ultra-
conservative evangelical theology, preaching divine wrath rather than
divine love.

9. See Comer Vann Woodward's Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel and the
National Cyclopedia of American Bio£[raphy.

10. The govemorship of the State of Georgia passed among many
hands in the sixteen years from 1906 to 1921. Hoke Smith, a lawyer and
former Secretary of Interior, was eleaed govemor in 1906. Smith
advocated many Progressive reforms, including increased appropriations
for public schools, the establishment of juvenile courts (so children
would not be tried as adults), and the abolition of the convict lease
system. This system allowed for the placement of convicts with individ-
uals or companies who leased the labor of the convict from the State.
Smith resigned his office in November, 1911, to assume a senatorial seat
in the United States Congress.

As president of the Georgia Senate, John Marshall Slaton became
acting govemor on November 16, 1911. He served until a special
election was held in January of the following year. Joseph Mackey Brown
won the special election, and held the govemorship until June, 1913.
Brown's term saw no major reform efforts. Defeated in his bid for a seat
in the U.S. Senate by Hoke Smith in 1914, Brown later became an
author.

11. After the Phagan murder, members of the Califomia Progressive
movement charged that Georgia lagged behind in enacting changes on
the Progressive agenda. If there had been regulations mandating inspec-
tions of factories and factory conditions, the Progressives argued, the
murder might have been less possible. As a group, the Califomia
Progressives did not couch their arguments about the Frank case in terms
of capital punishment and anti-Semitism, but generally conceived of
equality only in political and economic terms. There was no "vigorous
ideological offensive against the barriers of race and nationality." Pro-
gressivism was alive in Califomia in 1913-1915, even though it had
eclipsed as a movement in most other parts of America. See Gerald S.
Henig's article, "Califomia Progressives React to the Leo Frank Case."

12. Wilmer's petition had also been presented to the Georgia Prison
Commission several weeks before by Reverend John E. White, pastor of
the Second Baptist Church in Adanta. Organized in 1854, the church
claimed three United States senators, four govemors of Georgia, two
members of the Supreme Court, six judges of the Superior Court, and

84 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

ten mayors of Atlanta among its distinguished parishioners. Dr. John
White served there as pastor from January 1901 until August 1915. He
also was president of the Georgia Baptist Convention and "a dynamic
force in the civic life of the community."

ClMfter6

THE COMMUTATION

Throughout his twenty-seven months in prison, Leo
Frank received mail from friends and from people all
over the country. A man from Hayti, Missouri, sent a
cartoon from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch 'Svith the idea of
showing to you that all of the world is not cruel or cold."
In the drawing a mighty hand and forearm labeled "MOB
SPIRIT" is crushing the Ump body of "LEO FRANK." "It
is an awfiil thought that the human family lust for the blood
of a human being, but thank God we are becoming more
civilized," this unknown friend wrote in his letter. The man
also wished Frank a Merry Christmas that year — I9I4.

A few months before, Frank received notice from the
National Pencil Company that his monthly salary of $150
would be cut to $100. He wrote to Sig Montag, letting
him know how grateful he was for the money. "I also wish
you to know that I consider the monthly check, which you
so kindly send me, but a loan, which, when brighter days
come, I shall endeavor to repay."

Frank had petitioned the prison commission for clemency
in April I9I5. About six weeks later, Maurice Kovnat of
the AntiCapital Punishment Society of America, headquar-
tered in Chicago, wrote him a two-page letter. "Our Society
has most probably been the first to nationally work on your

85

86 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

behalf," wrote Kovnat. Many of the society's prominent
officers, he said, have written letters to the governor and
the prison commission.

But Frank's most steadfast correspondent was his wife,
Lucille. Many of her letters begin with "My own," "Dear-
est," or "My dear Honey" and they swell with love and
caring. She also sent news of family and friends amidst an
unending refrain of longing to be together. The letters
must have made his burden just a litde easier to bear.

Guns from the Austrian and German armies pounded
Lemberg in Galicia on June 21, 1915, the day that Gover-
nor John Slaton commuted Leo Frank's sentence to life
imprisonment. Frank had been taken from the Tower to the
train terminal at about midnight the night before. Accom-
panied by two deputies, the prisoner met Sheriff Mangum
at the station and the four men boarded the Central of
Georgia train for Macon. The conductor in charge of their
Pullman car. Captain L. B. Irwin, said Frank had a cloak
pulled up around his head and pretended to be ill. Several
other men left the Tower at about the same time Frank did
in order to decoy anyone who might have been watching.
Two hours and forty-five minutes later, Leo Frank was put
into an automobile in Macon and driven the thirty miles
through the countryside to the Milledgeville prison farm,
where he was registered as Convict No. 965. The next day
he issued a statement thanking Governor Slaton and once
again affirming his innocence.

The Atlanta Journal carried a statement from the gover-
nor in the June 21 edition. He said he had received more
than a hundred thousand letters from people all over the
country requesting clemency, and then proceeded to review
the salient details of the prosecution's case against Frank as
well as the defense strategy. 'The mystery in the case is the
question as to how Mary Phagan's body got into the
basement," said Slaton. Jim Conley testified that he had
helped Frank take the girl's body down to the basement in
the elevator on the afternoon of April 26, 1913. Yet Conley

The Commutation 87

also testified that on the morning of April 26 he had
defecated in the elevator shaft in the basement. The next
morning at 3:00 A.M., when the detectives went down to
the basement by way of the ladder, they found human
excrement in the elevator shaft in "natural condition/'
Because the elevator only stopped by hitting the ground in
the basement, excrement left there on the morning of April
26 could not have been found intact on the morning of
April 27, if Frank and Conley had used the elevator to carry
the girPs body to the basement. Conley had contradicted
himself under oath. In addition, with his slight physique,
Frank could not have carried the girPs fiiU body down the
ladder to the basement.

Governor Slaton also pointed out that the woimd on the
top of Mary Phagan's head was one that bled freely. Xct the
spot on the second floor "metal'' room, where Conley
testified he found the murdered girl's body, did not have
blood on it. In addition, microscopic examination of the
strands of hair found on the lathe there did not match the
victim's hair.

The virtue of Mary Phagan was not violated on the day
she was murdered, Slaton concluded, after sifting through
more than a thousand pages of evidence from the case. The
governor also pointed out that the solicitor general admit-
ted in his written argument that Frank was convicted on
the basis of circumstantial evidence.

Pastors Who Petitioned the Governor and the Prison
Commission to Commute Leo Frank^s Sentence

Rev. G. R. Buford, Moore Memorial Presbyterian

Church, Atlanta
Rev. Charles W. Daniel, Pastor, First Baptist Church,

Atlanta

Rev. H. M. DuBose, Ristor, First Methodist Church,
Atlanta

88 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Rev. R. O. Flinn, Pastor, North Avenue Presbyterian

Church, Atlanta
Rev. C. Lewis Fowler, Pastor, College Park Baptist

Church, Atlanta
Rev. a. H. Gordon, Pastor, Ponce DeLeon Baptist

Church, Atlanta
Rev. W. R. Hendrix, Pastor, Saint Mark's Methodist

Church, Atlanta
Rev. W. E. Hill, Pastor, West End Presbyterian Church,

Adanta
Rev. a. R. Holderb(l)y, Pastor, East Point Presbyterian

Church, Adanta
Rev. R. J. Huff, Pastor, Eagan Park Baptist Church,

Adanta
Rev. a. M. Hughlett, Presiding Elder, Methodist

Church, Adanta
Rev. Jerre A. Moore, Pastor, Harris Street Presbyterian

Church, Adanta
Rev. Fritz Rauschenberg, Pastor, College Park Presby-
terian Church, Adanta
Rev. Russell K. Smith, Rector, Epiphany Church, At-
lanta
Rev. Jacob L. White, Pastor, Tabernacle Baptist Church,

Adanta
Rev. John E. White, Pastor, Second Baptist Church,

Adanta
Rev. C. B. Wilmer, Rector, Saint Luke's Episcopal

Church, Adanta
Source: John Marshall Slaton Collection (AC # 00-070)
Box 42
Georgia Department of Archives and History

In commuting Frank's sentence to life imprisonment.
Governor Slaton said he believed he was carrying out the
will of Judge Roan. "I can endure misconstruction, abuse.

The Commutation 89

and condemnation, but I cannot stand the constant com-
panionship of an accusing conscience," the governor wrote.
'Two judges of the supreme court of Georgia doubted; two
judges of the supreme court of the United States doubted;
one of three prison commissioners doubted," wrote Slaton.
Obviously he doubted, too.

The same issue of the Atlanta Journal editorialized that
"the governor has shown wisdom and courage in his per-
formance of an act of simple justice, and time will vindicate
his moderation." That the jury had reached a verdict of
guilty was not surprising, the editorial said, due to the
circumstances and conditions that surrounded the trial. No
human court or jury could have done differendy.

In the aftermath of Slaton's decision to commute Frank's
sentence, martial law had to be declared in Georgia and was
in effect the day Nathaniel E. Harris assumed the office of
Governor. The National Guard was stationed at the gover-
nor's mansion, and the demonstrators marching outside
cried: "We want John M. Slaton, King of the Jews and
traitor Governor of Georgia."^ The woods around ex-Gov-
ernor Slaton's home were filled with several hundred angry
people, and Slaton and his wife were induced to leave
Arianta until tensions subsided. John Slaton had always
been popular in Atianta, and the public reaction against
him reveals the depth of the emotional response his pardon
of Frank had aroused.

The Mennonite was the only Christian journal to mention
the commutation. But oddly enough, after this, it was silent
on the Frank case; whereas after mid-August 1915, other
Christian magazines that had never mentioned it began
discussing the Frank case.

The Jewish community was traumatized by the events
that followed Governor Slaton's decision. Jewish businesses
were boycotted in several sections of Georgia (including
Marietta), and in Atianta, Jews had to organize groups to
keep watch on the mob that marched on the governor's
mansion. Jewish parents kept their children out of the

90 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

downtown area for fear they might be hurt. How could this
be happening in America, they wondered.

Several weeks after Leo Frank's transfer to the prison
farm at Milledgeville, he was attacked while he slept by J.
William Creen, a fellow inmate. His throat was badly
slashed with a butcher knife and he nearly died. Only the
quick action of a surgeon, who was also a prisoner, saved
his life.

Thomas Watson, in his Jeffirsonian^ urged that a petition
be circulated asking for clemency for William Creen, who
was serving a life sentence. Governor Harris later was
presented with the petition and he personally interviewed
the assailant after the attack.

Shortly after the attempt on Frank's life. Governor Harris
learned that a mob from Cobb County, Georgia, planned
to go to Milledgeville and execute Frank. But Harris alerted
the National Guard and the attack was forestalled.

Throughout the summer of 1915, Thomas Watson con-
tinued his incessant editorial assault on Frank. Now he also
attacked ex-Governor Slaton — and his wife, as well — and
openly advocated lynching Leo Frank. No record, however,
shows that Tom Watson was there at Frank's lynching or at
the ceremony that gave birth to the modem Ku Klux Klan.
Indeed, back in 1913, Watson evidently had been offered
five thousand dollars to defend Leo Frank, but turned it
down. (Alexander Brin, of The Boston Traveler^ informed
Mrs. Frank "that a movement has been started here [in
Boston] to make it possible to suppress Tom Watson's paper
The Jeffersonian'. Prominent citizens of Massachusetts are
united in the effort. . . .")

Except among the hard line anti-Semitic community,
which was kept in continual agitation by Watson and his
Jeffersonian^ the public reaction to Slaton's commutation of
Frank met with widespread approval. U.S. Senator Irving
Joseph, of New York, wrote to John Slaton at the end of
June, when the former governor and his wife were in New
York City. "Under the circumstances you showed great

The Commutation 91

moral and physical courage," the Senator said, "for which
your fellow citizens throughout this great nation admire
you."

The Jewish press from Atlanta to San Francisco lauded
the former governor's courage and action. 'There is no
honor comparable to that which causes a man to sacrifice
life or ambition in the cause of justice," wrote The American
Jewish Review of Atlanta. In San Francisco, The Jewish Times
declared that "a justice-loving community must feel grateful
towards ex-Governor Slaton for the stand he has taken. He
has proven himself to be one of the most fearless and
broadest minded men in the United States." Present-day
Atlanta has a street named Slaton Drive.

Meanwhile, Leo Frank lay in the Milledgeville hospital
ward reading his mail, which included a letter from the
Cornell Class of '06 secretary offering "heartfelt congratu-
lations on the splendid stand taken by the Governor." As
he lay recovering from the slashing of his throat, the
frightened yoimg man could only wonder what would
happen next.

Endnotes

1. See Nathaniel E. Harris, Autobu)£fraphy: The Story of an Old Man^s
Life with Reminiscences of Seventy-Five Tears.

Chapter?

THE LYNCHING

Shortly before 10:00 RM. the night of August 16, 1915,
seven automobiles carrying twenty-five men drove into
the little town of Milledgeville. The Macon Telegraph would
later describe this group as "avenging angels." When the
men arrived at the outer walls of the state penitentiary, they
quickly overpowered and gagged the two guards stationed
there. While four men stood watch over the subdued prison
guards, others using electrician's pliers, snapped the barbed
wire entanglements surrounding the penitentiary.

Inside the grounds, one group of men subdued Captain
J. M. Burk, superintendent of the prison. He was getting
ready for bed when he was summoned to the door of his
home by a guttural voice and loud knocking, then hand-
cuffed and forced to lead this group three hundred yards
from his house to the main gate of the prison. Another
group of men had gone to the home of Warden James E.
Smith and held him at gunpoint. The warden's wife fainted
into her husband's arms.

At the gate to the prison. Chief Night Guard Hester was
ordered to put up his hands. Meanwhile, five men grabbed
Frank from the hospital ward. He was handcuffed, and one
of the captors grabbed him by the hair. The prison super-
intendent said that Frank never uttered a word as he was

93

94 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

dragged toward the waiting cars, although he was groaning
in pain.

With Frank captured, all the men sped away in automo-
biles in the direction of Eatonton, evidendy heading for
Adanta. The entire operation inside the prison building
lasted less than seven minutes.

The taillights of the automobiles had barely merged with
the Georgian darkness when the prison authorities sounded
the alarm. The telephone was useless, because the wires had
been cut on the telegraph and telephone lines connecting
Milledgeville with Macon and Adanta. All the wires to the
prison farm had also been severed, but a single telegraph
strand, connecting Milledgeville with Augusta, had been
overlooked, and it was over this line that news of the
kidnapping was sent. The men had also cut the gas line on
Warden Smith's car.

A courier was sent to the home of Captain Ennis, com-
mandant of the Baldwin Blues, Milledgeville's detachment
of state militia. Messengers were also sent to the homes of
other Baldwin County officials, including Sheriff Terry.
Soon guards from the prison and other police officers were
after the mob. This urgency could have been prompted by
a desire to apprehend an escaped prisoner, because early
reports suggested the mob which took Frank away might
have been a group of his friends.

The entire Board of the state prison commission hap-
pened to be at the Milledgeville penitentiary the Monday
night Frank was kidnapped. Commissioners Davison, Rai-
ney, and Patterson had arrived late on August 16 to begin
preliminary work on the improvements planned for the
penitentiary, which had been approved by the state legisla-
ture. They were spending the night at the home of the
prison superintendent and apparentiy slept through the
abduction, waking only to see the cars speed away.

The kidnapping would have been much harder to execute
a few weeks before. Because of the daily rumors about plans
to take Frank out of the prison, the roads around Milledge-

The Lynching 95

ville had been guarded and additional men had bolstered
the guard at the penitentiary. On the night of August 16,
however, prison guards were few and the roads were open.

At the prison, a coil of rope had been thrust into Leo
Frank's face and another prisoner had overheard the mob
leader say that they were planning to take Frank to Marietta,
175 miles away. Frank was handcuffed, and the wound in
his neck was obviously hurting. It was a torturous ride,
lasting seven or eight hours.

Why did the mob choose Marietta? Why did they risk
detection to drive so far? It would have been quicker and
simpler just to have shot Frank at the prison. But Marietta
was the hometown of Mary Phagan. Frey's woods was
where the littie girl had played as a child. It was an appro-
priate place to hang the man the vigilantes were sure had
killed her. The mob members called themselves the Knights
of Mary Phagan; and this lawless act brought into being a
new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

A brown grass rope, half an inch thick, was thrown over
the limb of an oak tree about twelve feet off the ground.
He was told to climb onto a table, and the rope was put
around his neck. The table was then kicked out from under
him. The lynch mob felt they had "performed a duty to
Southern womanhood and to Southern society." Only the
onset of daybreak prevented their placing Frank's body on
Mary Phagan's grave. The last statement Leo Frank uttered
was: "I love my wife and my mother more than I love my
life."

Readers of The Washington Post awakened on Tuesday,
August 17, 1915, to learn that "Mexicans Attack U.S.
Cavalry Post," "U-Boat Bombards Coast of England," and
"Russian Front Cut by Bavarian Wedge." That same morn-
ing, the headlines in the upper left corner of the paper read:
"Leo Frank Taken from Prison by Armed Men; Vow to Put
His Body on Mary Phagan's Grave." Unknown to the
Washington paper editors, by the time this edition was on
the street, Leo Frank was dead.

96 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Around 7:00 A.M. on August 17, 1915, outside the little
town of Marietta, Georgia, William J. Frey saw four auto-
mobiles speeding along the road in front of his house. He
thought he saw someone matching Leo Frank's description
wedged between two men in the back seat of the second or
third car. Frey was a former Cobb County sheriff. He
owned a grove of woods and a cotton gin house along
Roswell Road two-and-a-half miles east of town. Today
Marietta still has streets named Roswell Road and Frey's
Gin Road.

At around 7:30 A.M., Frey drove into Marietta, where
he learned that Frank's body had been found hanging from
a tree in his own woods. He had driven right by it on the
way into town; the leaves of summertime had hidden the
gruesome sight.

A curious crowd was gathered in the grove of oaks close
to his gin house by the time Frey returned. News of the
discovery had spread over the countryside like fire through
a bam of dried tobacco. The road next to the wood was
clogged with people coming from both directions. Across
the road was the cottage where Mary Phagan once lived
with her parents.

The sight of Leo Frank's body hanging from an oak tree
came into view as William Frey and his companions, Gus
Benson and W. W. Yaun, entered the thicket. One end of
the rope was around Frank's neck, and had been tied in a
hangman's knot. The other end was tied to a sapling some
twenty feet away. Frank's bare feet, tied together at the
ankles with grass rope, were roughly four feet off the
groimd. His body swayed in the morning breeze.

A white handkerchief covered the dead man's face.
Frank's body was clothed in a thin, white pajama jacket
with the letters L.M.F. stitched in red thread on the left
side of the chest. The letters were sewn there by his wife,
Lucille. The sleeves of his jacket had been cut, bit by bit, by
the pocketknives of souvenir hunters. From the waist down.

The Lynching 97

Frank was wrapped in a dirty piece of brown cloth that
looked like khaki. His hands were cuffed in front of him.

A trickle of blood had run down from Frank's neck onto
the pajamas. The wound that had almost ended his life
thirty days earlier was now gaping open.

After the lynch mob had fled the scene at about eight
o'clock that morning, the first curious onlookers had found
Frank still alive. His body was warm, and there was the
faint throb of a pulse. But no one cut him down then. He
hung there and died!

As the sun came through the stand of trees that morning,
the body Frey and his companions saw looked almost
tranquil. Frank's hands were limp and held together by the
handcuffs, giving the image of a man praying. He seemed
part of the forest.

The crowd came in droves to see Frank's lifeless body.
They took pictures, even craning their necks to be part of
the camera's record. One man stood by the suspended body
with his hand on Frank's leg as if he were a sports fisherman
with his prize catch. Wisps of the hemp rope used to hang
Leo Frank were also collected, once his body had been cut
down. This behavior was not uncommon; at lynchings
souvenirs were often collected, and wanting to be part of
the picture was typical of the crowd reaction.

As the crowd pressed to see Frank's corpse, a frenzied
man, eyes blazing like a maniac, ran up to the body and
shook his fist: "Now we've got you!" he screamed. "You
won't murder any more little innocent girls! We've got you
now! We've got you now!"

At this point Newton Morris, a former judge of the Blue
Ridge circuit, shouted for attention: Turn Frank's body
over to an imdertaker, he urged. But the frenzied man
demanded it be burned so that there would not be "a piece
of it as big as a cigar." Finally the judge persuaded the
crowd not to bum the body. Someone cut Frank down and
Judge Morris called for an undertaker.

When the undertaker's men arrived in a horse-drawn

98 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

wagon, the frenzied man reached out and struck the body
as it was being carried. The undertaker's men dropped
Frank's corpse, and the maniac started to grind Frank's face
with his heel. The judge begged the man to stop, while the
undertaker's assistants grabbed the body and loaded it onto
the wagon. They jumped into the wagon and the big horse
started toward Marietta at a gallop.

Judge Morris and a companion, John Wood, ran from the
grove and followed in Wood's automobile. They overtook
the wagon on the outskirts of Marietta, transferred the
body to Attorney Wood's car, and raced for Atlanta — ^with
a large crowd in pursuit.

From the moment it was known that Frank's body had
been taken into the undertaking establishment of Green-
berg & Bond, thousands of curious onlookers crowded the
building at Houston and Ivy streets hoping to see the body.
The corpse had been hidden in a garage at the rear of the
undertaker's address, but its location was soon known and
a crowd gathered, which included hundreds of women and
children. An estimated fifteen thousand people viewed
Frank's body, coming into Greenberg & Bond at the rate
of fifty to sixty a minute. It took fifty policemen, under the
command of Captain Dobbs, to keep order. Among those
viewing Frank's body was city detective John Black, who
had arrested Frank on the Tuesday morning following the
Phagan murder.

Hundreds of pictures of Frank's hanging body were sold
for twenty-five-cents apiece. Licenses were issued to three
Atlantans to sell picture postcards of the body. However,
within a few days, the Atlanta city council passed an ordi-
nance making it unlawfiil to sell photographs of the body
of a person who had been hanged illegally. But the ordi-
nance did not prevent people from obtaining pictures of
Frank's lifeless body for several years after the lynching.

About ten years before Frank was hanged in Frey's grove,
the Atlanta City Council and Chamber of Commerce had
issued a pamphlet, which said: "Atlanta is an orderly city

The Lynching 99

and scenes of mob violence have never occurred here. There
has never been a lynching or a forcible rescue of prisoners,
and the bloody scenes which have saddened the history of
other communities are wholly absent from the records of
Atlanta's life.''

William Frey was offered two hundred dollars for the big
oak tree on which Leo Frank was hanged. Frey declined the
money, but was forced to hire a watchman to guard the tree
from souvenir hunters. Plans were made to build a concrete
wall around the tree to mark the spot where the "alleged
slayer of Mary Phagan" died.

Chapters

THE BURIAL

At 12:01 P.M., August 18, the body of Leo Max Frank
began the trip back to Brooklyn on Southern Railway
passenger train No. 36. Mrs. Frank, her brother-in-law
Alexander Marcus, and Rabbi David Marx were among
those who accompanied the casket to New Ifork. Mrs. Frank
was dressed in the clothes of mourning. She had been
preparing to visit her uncle in Athens, Georgia when she
learned of the lynching.

The Pullman car, "Valdosta," stood on the track parallel
to the baggage car in which the coffin was placed. Leo
Frank had ridden in the drawing room of the "Valdosta"
two months earlier when he was secretly taken from Atlanta
to the Milledgeville prison farm.

Security was tight the night before the train left for
Brooklyn. Police Chief Mayo asked his men not to take
sides with the crowd, even though some of his officers
collected souvenirs the morning before in Frey's grove. But
surprisingly, few people gathered at the terminal as Frank's
body was loaded onto the waiting train. His casket was a
plain pine box, painted black.

Leo Frank's parents, Rudolph and Rae Frank, heard of
their son's death on August 17. They drew the blinds in
their home at 152 Underbill Avenue, in Brooklyn, and did

101

102 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

not answer the phone or the doorbell. Callers at the Frank
home were met by Otto Stem, Leo's brother-in-law.

Governor John Slaton, who commuted Frank's death
sentence to life imprisonment, was in San Francisco with
his wife attending an exposition. When he learned of the
lynching, he expressed unqualified condemnation of the
deed. Slaton claimed that the lynching would never be
condoned by the citizens of Georgia, but Mayor James G.
Woodward of Atlanta warned the ex-governor and his wife
not to return to their state. The mayor, who was also in
California at the time, suggested that Slaton would be in
dire danger if he did so. Speaking before the California
State Assessor's Association, Mayor Woodward defended
the lynching as fulfilling the will of the people and declared
that Frank suffered just penalty for an unspeakable crime.
Woodward, a former printer, served four terms as mayor of
Atlanta between 1899 and 1916. (On one occasion, in
November 1908, he had been discovered drunk in that
city's "red lighf' district.)^ There was rebuttal in Georgia to
Mayor Woodward's California speech. Reverend W. F.
Smith, pastor of the First Methodist Church in Valdosta,
spoke of the mayor's "unwise and damaging speech" during
his sermon on Simday, August 22, 1915.

Speaking before the San Francisco Center of the Califor-
nia Civic League on August 17, 1915, John Slaton said he
would return to Georgia by mid-September. He and his
wife planned to live out their lives in that state.

Leo and Lucille Frank had spent less than five years
together. And now, on the afternoon of August 18, 1915,
she was taking her husband to New %)rk to be buried. She
had endured the long court appeals and suffered the endless
barbed editorials about her husband. She had thrilled to his
commutation, despaired at his near fatal wounding, and,
now, suffered his hanging to a tree. As the long train
thundered towards New York, Mrs. Frank seemed on the
verge of collapse. She had taken a sleeping potion, but
awakened from time to time. "Oh, God, my Leo," she

The Burial 103

moaned. "They took my Leo away from me, but I have him
back now — but only for a short time. I won't feel at ease
until I see him lowered into the grave, \fengeance? I want
no vengeance. All I ask is to be left alone. My Leo is gone
forever. What can I do?"

Riding in the train with Mrs. Frank was Rabbi Marx.^
He had been called to the pulpit of the Atlanta Hebrew
Benevolent Congregation (later called Temple) twenty years
earlier and he held the post for more than fifty years. Rabbi
Marx, a friend and staunch supporter of Leo Frank, led the
established German Jewish community of Atlanta, and Leo
Frank's wife and uncle were members of his group. The
rabbi had been bom in the South, graduated from Hebrew
Union College in Cincinnati, and was a perfect ambassador^
between the German Jews of Atlanta and the Christian
public. The best way to prevent anti-Jewish feeling, he
believed, was to assume the identifying marks of the sur-
rounding Christian community. German Jewish worship
services were performed in a Christianized format and
traditional Jewish dress and grooming were changed to
match the general styles of the day.

In a selection preserved in the Official History cf Fulton
County (1934), Rabbi Marx maintained that Jews "consti-
tute no special group. They are integrated into the life of
Atlanta, share in that life, in its weal and woe — in its efforts
to build a better and a greater city."

While making that somber trip northward. Rabbi Marx
must certainly have gone over in his mind the many changes
that had taken place in the small German Jewish community
of Atlanta since the early 1880s. Social and economic
conditions in Russia and the promise of a better life in the
West had caused a massive number of Russian and Eastern
European Jews to pull up stakes and cross the Atlantic to
America. Rabbi Marx tried to act friendly towards his twelve
hundred Russian brethren who had settled in Atlanta by
1910. But he was concerned that their large number threat-
ened to undo the social and professional bonds with the

104 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Christian community the long-established German Jews
had worked so hard to develop. Rabbi Marx also felt Leo
Frank's conviction for Mary Phagan's murder was caused
by an anti-Semitic outburst brought about in large part by
the presence of so many Russian Jews in the center of town
and he had gone to New York City after the trial to talk
with Louis Marshall of the American Jewish Committee to
express his concern.

Leo Frank was laid to rest in the Cypress Hills District of
Queens Borough in New York on August 20. To maintain
family privacy, less than twenty mourners were on hand for
his burial. The casket was taken hastily to the cemetery, to
avoid the curious onlookers. Rabbi Marx conducted the
service. Three days later Leo Frank's earthly belongings
were sent back to his wife from Milledgeville onboard the
Georgia Railroad. The bill of lading read: a bale of bedding,
an ice water cooler, a box spring, and one box of books.

Although he referred to Frank's lynching as a consum-
mate outrage, former Governor John Slaton declared he
would prefer to have Frank lynched by a mob than to have
him hanged by judicial mistake. And the former governor
went on to say that every man who was engaged in the
lynching should be hanged as an assassin.

Governor Nathaniel Harris^, who took office in June
1915, riding on Tom Watson's political support, also
pledged a thorough investigation into the lynching of Leo
Frank. Harris was notified by Marietta's Mayor Dobbs
shorriy after 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday, August 17 of Frank's
death. The governor took the train that night from Fitzger-
ald, Georgia, to Arianta to help the prison commission in
its inquiry. The governor later offered a reward of fifteen
hundred dollars for the "first three convictions of partici-
pants" in the Frank lynching.

The Knights of Mary Phagan were from Marietta, the
hometown of the murdered girl. This self-appointed 'Vigi-
lance committee" included a clergyman, an ex-sheriff, and
two former Superior Court judges. However, no member

The Burial 105

of this lynch mob was ever brought to justice. The grand
jury that investigated the lynching reported to the court
that they were unable to find evidence against anyone,
despite offers of interviews by the lynchers to reporters. Officials
at the Milledgeville penitentiary were also exonerated.

Historian Leonard Dinnerstein notes that at least one of
the Knights of Mary Phagan came to know what Frank
must have felt in the early morning hours of August 17,
1915. Fred Lockhart, also known as D. B. (Bunce) Napier,
was nearly lynched by a mob in Shreveport, Louisiana, in
April 1934. He reportedly drove the car that took Frank on
his final journey from Milledgeville to Marietta. There has
been some speculation that a member of the Phagan family
was among the lynch mob, but this is imsupported by any
evidence.

Denunciation of Frank's lynching came from varied quar-
ters. Secretary of the Navy Daniels issued a formal state-
ment calling the lynching of Leo M. Frank "the worst blot
upon the name of the state [of Georgia].'' Louis Marshall,
who acted as attorney for Frank in the U.S. Supreme Court,
looked at the crime as "an ineffaceable blot upon the name
of Georgia." Dr. C. B. Wilmer, an Episcopal minister from
Atlanta, deplored the mob spirit. Reverend Wilmer called
Arianta's Mayor James Woodward and the Jeffersonian^'s edi-
tor, Tom Watson, "a menace to public safety." The Leo
Frank Protest League, an organization of about two hun-
dred men and women which included suffragist Bella New-
man- Zilberman, planned to send a statement to all of the
state governors protesting the great injustice done to Frank.

On Wednesday, August 18, the same day Leo Frank's
body was put on the train for New York, a newspaper
reporter named O. B. Keeler sat in the living room of his
Marietta home listening to the Victrola. Just as the band
broke into 'The Robert E. Lee Medley," there was a step
on the veranda outside the open door. A knock soon
followed. Mr. Keeler went to the door and stepped outside.
After asking his name, a man handed Keeler an envelope.

106 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Then he turned and walked out into the summer night.
Keeier did not know who the messenger was. When he
opened the envelope Keeier found a wedding ring and a
typewritten note which said: "Frank's dying request was
that his wedding ring be given to his wife. Will you not see
that this request was carried out?'' The note also warned
Keeier not to try to discover the identity of the man who
delivered the envelope.

Leo Frank never expected to have to make such a last
request. In a letter to Deputy U.S. Marshall Maurice Klein,
written July 4, 1915, Frank spoke of again taking up the
fight which would lead to vindication and liberty.

Just ten days before he was hanged, Leo Frank wrote a
letter to Dan Lehon, the southern manager of the Bums
Detective Agency. His neck wound was healing rapidly,
Frank said, and the scar would probably not be very notice-
able. He was still very weak from losing so much blood and
was confined to bed continuously. His wife, Lucille, was a
"ministering angel," who had supported him wonderfiilly
in his struggle to live. "Surely God has let me live and aided
me in this dark hour for a brighter day, which must be near
at hand."

Endnotes

1 . See George J. Lankevich, Atlanta: A Chronological and Documentary
History 1813-1976.

2. David Marx served as Rabbi of die Temple from 1895 until 1946,
and Rabbi Emeritus from 1946 until his death in 1962. Dr. Marx had
been preceded by Dr. Leo Reich (1888-1895), and was followed by
Jacob M. Rothschild.

3. The rabbi delivered an opening prayer in the Georgia State Senate
in 1898.

4. Bom in Jonesboro, Tennessee, Nathaniel Edwin Harris was the son
of a physician and Methodist minister. His parents, Alexander and Edna
(Haynes) Harris, had eleven children. Nathaniel was the eldest. He
married Fannie Burke in 1873 and the couple had seven children. After
his first wife died, Harris married Hattie Gibson Jobe, in 1899.

Harris served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, then

The Burial 107

graduated from the University of Georgia in 1870. Nathaniel Harris was
the last Confederate veteran to serve as governor of the State of Georgia.
Leo Frank's uncle, Moses Frank, also served in Lee's army. After practic-
ing law in Macon, Georgia, Harris was eleaed to the Georgia House of
Representatives where he served four years. He was instrumental in the
establishment of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Although adequately fiilfilling the duties of the State Executive Office,
Harris was very unpopular. He had to face the economic problems of the
First World War, the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan, and Prohibition.
Harris did secure passage of a compulsory education law. In 1916, Hugh
Dorsey defeated Harris in the Democratic gubernatorial primary by a
margin of more than thirty-six thousand votes.

Chapter 9

THE PREJUDICE

Leo Frank was convicted on the strength of a black man's
-# testimony — ^truly a rare event in the South in the early
years of the twentieth century. Certainly the words of a
black man were almost never taken over those of a white
man. And Frank was convicted by an all-white jury.

The same day in August 1915 on which Leo Frank was
lynched in Frey's woods, a black man named John Riggins
was shot about a himdred times near Bainbridge, Georgia.
Riggins had been accused of attacking a white woman, the
wife of a prominent tobacco man in the lower section of
Decatur County. There was no trial, no appeals. Yet the
people of this coimty were described in one Adanta news-
paper as some of the most conservative and level-headed
folks in that part of Georgia. John Riggins was twenty-
three years old. Before he was killed, he was carried before
his alleged victim for identification. She said he was, indeed,
her assailant.

In the early years of this century, blacks living in the
South were by far the most frequent targets for lynching.
Although the South had about half as many people as the
North and West at this time, it had more than seven times
the number of lynchings as the other two sections com-
bined. Only five states in the entire country could say they

109

1 10 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

had no lynchings between 1889 and 1918^ Of the 96
people lynched in America in 1915, 53 were black and 43
were white. Georgia headed the list with 17 mob killings.
Some of the lynching victims were innocent of any crime
and the majority had committed only minor offenses. More
often than not, members of the lynch mobs were never
brought to justice.

Leo Frank was lynched at a time when lynchings in the
United States were on the decline. Most significantly, Frank,
a white man, was lynched at a time when that lawless act
was directed primarily against blacks. There were two other
whites lynched in Georgia in 1915, but one would have to
go back six years, to 1909, to find record of another white
man lynched there.

In 1906, an article appeared in The Independent that
viewed anti-Semitism as being responsible for the Dreyftis
Affair in France. It asked: "Is the Dreyfus case possible in
America?" The conclusion was no, because anti-Semitism
had not yet reached the pitch of intensity here that it had
in Russia, Austria, Germany, and France. To be sure, a
subconscious anti- Jewish feeling existed and showed itself
in many small ways in the larger American cities where Jews
formed a distinct class. But we in this country, it was noted,
are no better than other nations insofar as racial antipathies.
Witness our treatment of blacks and the Chinese.

By 1913, however, the attitude toward Jews, at least in
the South, appeared to be changing — ^for the worse. An
article appearing in Colliers in 1915, written by C.P. Con-
nolly, who was also a lawyer, said that the heart of the
Frank case was "politics, prejudice and perjury."

Connolly had carried on correspondence with Leo Frank
during the fall of 1914. "What I want to do is to vindicate
your good name before the people of the United States,"
he wrote Frank. "My heart is in the work." In another letter
he said: "How such a mass of falsehood and suspicion could
be built up around you is amazing. . . . Do not worry. Keep
up your spirits." And after studying the case exhaustively.

The Prejudice 111

this prosecuting attorney from Montana concluded that
"Frank is the victim of the police fastening the crime on
him as the result of a public opinion which demanded
conviction."

Justice William Lawlor of the Supreme Court of Califor-
nia came to a similar conclusion, after discussions with
Connolly, Daniel Lchon of the Bums Detective Agency,
Burns himself, and Governor John Slaton. 'The case was
without parallel in the history of the United States," the
associate justice wrote Lucille Frank, "Ifour lamented hus-
band was innocent of murder."

Leo Frank was not a black and he was convicted on the
contradictory testimony of a black man of questionable
character who was known to be drinking on the day of the
murder. And he was lynched by a white mob at a time
when even the lynching of blacks in the South was declining
significantly. Obviously, some other emotional prejudice
was afoot; and in the seven decades since this pre-World
War I tragedy, we have had a prolonged opportunity to
study the climate that produced the verdict and the ghastly
aftermath that would inflict such an ugly stain on the legal
system of Georgia.

How have the major historians^ viewed the role of anti-
Semitism in the South in general and the Frank case in
particular? The established nativist philosophy on minority
groups made the Jew suspect in the South. 'The Jew usually
personified all the fears of the rural masses concerning
dissent from orthodox religious Protestantism. The Jew was
a stranger. ... In addition, he was usually successfiil in
business, a fact no doubt quickly noted in depressed agrar-
ian areas," wrote one historian. Many historians have drawn
a distinction between popular and upper-class anti-Semi-
tism. Popular anti-Semitism is linked with political and
economic issues, whereas upper-class anti-Semitism is a
variety of snobbery. The barbarous treatment of Leo Frank
was "apparently the venting of pent-up hatreds against his
race and position. ... It is very likely that the absence of

1 12 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

similar cases in the South was due entirely to the fact that
the aloofness and disjoined social position of the Jew pro-
vided an absence of opportunities/' There were, of course,
many concerns and emotions churning in and around the
courtroom in Fulton County during July and August of
1913: "A rising crime rate and anxiety over law and order,
an increasing rigidity and punitiveness in racial discipline,
an embatded defense of sexual purity, [and] a baffled rage
at industrial oppression/' Leo Frank was hated intensely for
being a Yankee outsider and was seen as a deviant 'Svho
incarnated all the alien forces that threatened the traditional
culture/'

Writing on anti- Jewish prejudice in the United States in
1914, Rabbi Bernard Drachman maintained that knowl-
edge 'Svill drive from the heart of the Gentile all hatred of
the Jew and relegate anti- Jewish prejudice, in America and
all coimtries, to the limbo of forgotten things."

In 1914, Edward A. Ross, a University of Wisconsin
professor, recorded some of his personal and professional
observations about the Eastern European Hebrews in
America. The Hebrews in this country endeavor to control
the immigration policy. Professor Ross argued. 'The liter-
ature that proves the blessings of immigration to all classes
in America emanates from subde Hebrew brains." A former
Populist-tumed-Progressive and a radical, Ross lent aca-
demic support to the anti-immigration sentiment in the
United States. Why would the Jews favor open immigration
in the United States? The answer, according to Ross, was
that they wanted to get their brethren out of the "Pale of
Setdement" in Russia. The Rde had been established in
April 1835 as the area in which Jews could live and carry
on business. By 1897, nearly five million Jews lived in the
IMe and conditions in Russia had grown steadily worse
since 1880. After the 1917 Revolution, the Pale was dis-
solved.

Ross pointed out that the Jewish immigrants would live
in the dirtiest poverty to avoid hard muscular labor. And,

The Prejudice 113

of course, "none can beat the Hebrew at a bargain, for
through all the intricacies of commerce he can scent his
profit. . . . Pent within the Talmud and the Pale of Setde-
ment, their interests have become few, and many of them
have developed a monstrous and repulsive love of gain."
Most of the crimes committed among the Hebrew immi-
grants were supposedly for gain. The Gentile, Ross said,
resented having to engage in an undignified scramble in
order to maintain his trade or his clientele "against the
Jewish invader."

One of the professor's comments is very relevant to the
Frank case. 'The fact that pleasure-loving Jewish business-
men spare Jewesses, but pursue Gentile girls, excites bitter
comment." The stigma of perversion hung over Leo Frank's
head from the time of his arrest. D. M. Parker of Baxley,
Georgia, in a 1915 letter to the editor of the New Republic
said that his state "has sought in the conviction of Frank to
redress a monumental wrong, a crime against an innocent
working girl, committed by a fiend. . . ."

Dr. Ross also said that in certain parts of the country,
"the readiness of the Jews to commit perjury has passed
into proverb." He noted that Hebrews drove down the
ethics of the professions, such as medicine and law. And
sounding not unlike the Nazis, Ross spoke of the "prosper-
ous parasitism" of the Jew.

Positive Jewish traits, such as an emphasis on education
and learning, the professor interpreted as a means to a
Jewish end, namely, making money. Acquisition of knowl-
edge was simply another example of Jewish acquisitiveness.
As for religious ideas, Jewish immigrants were described as
"so stubborn that the Protestant churches despair in making
proselytes among them."

These thoughts by an established university professor
suggest how at least some members of the intellectual
establishment viewed the Jews at a time when Leo Frank's
defense counsel was pursuing the appeal process through
the courts of Georgia.

1 14 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

An influential Protestant weekly magazine in Chicago,
Christian Century^ published only one brief reference to the
Frank case from 1913 to 1915. On the other hand, it
printed two articles which questioned the legitimacy and
necessity of Jewish religious expression and collective Jewish
identity in the twentieth century.

In his Christian Century article, "Inadequate Religions:
How the Religion of Jesus Christ Fares Amid the Wreckage
of Ancient Faiths," Robert Elliott Speer wrote that: "Nine-
teen hundred years ago, to the best of all the non-Christian
religions — the religion between which and all the other
non-Christian religions a great gulf is fixed, Judaism — ^Jesus
Christ came, and that, the best of all religions. He declared
to be outworn and inadequate. The time had at last come.
He taught, to supplant it with the full and perfect truth
that was in Him." For Robert Speer, Jesus was the only
source of human salvation. The author maintained further
that "if the missionary enterprise is a mistake, it is not our
mistake; it is the mistake of God."

In the other Christian Century article, W. J. Lhamon
explored the question: "Why does the Jew remain?" After
discussing a book written by a Jewish scholar of Talmudic
literature at Cambridge University, Lhamon asked:

How shall we understand the age-long abiding of this strange
people? Have they still a message to the world, and is that why
they stay? Or have they delivered their message? Have they
given their best to the world? And are they ready to melt into
the greater group, the brotherhood of the world in process of
redemption? Is it not pride of race that holds them now, and
the habit of separateness? And will not these inferior forces
give way under the disintegrating rationalism indicated above?
Their message of monotheism— Christianity has received it,
and improved it, and is bearing it on to the world with a speed
and power never dreamed of by the Jews. Their message of
monogamy — that too has been accepted by Christianity, and
rendered more secure in her hands than ever it was in the hands
of Moses and David. Their message of atonement — that has

The Prejudice 115

become priceless with Christians, and by diem has been win-
nowed of sacramentalism, and sweetened by the love and blood
and prayers of Israel's greatest Son, and is being proclaimed to
the world by fifty times as many millions as the Jews can boast.
Why do they linger?

Historians and social scientists have offered two basic
theories of the rise of anti- Jewish discrimination in the
United States. One is that a visible pattern of anti- Jewish
discrimination began to develop in America in the last
twenty-five to thirty years of the nineteenth century. Asso-
ciated with this line of thinking is the idea that the general
American conception of the Jew always contained both
positive and negative elements. In effect, the "average
American" held ambivalent feelings about Jews.

The other theory holds that an essentially positive public
attitude towards Jews in America underwent a fundamental
shift in the second decade of the twentieth century. Ambiv-
alent attitudes towards Jews on the part of non- Jewish
Americans are not part of this model. The period from
1890 to 1900 is viewed not as anti-Semitic, but "actually
marked by distinct philo-Semitism."

It should be noted, however, that there is a distinct lack
of historical research on American anti-Semitism. There are
very few works that attempt to analyze the causes of Amer-
ican anti-Semitism based on historical investigations. For
example, most of the studies from the 1930s (when serious
scholarly attention to American anti-Semitism first devel-
oped) to the late 1950s, were only descriptive. Anti- Jewish
discrimination was discussed in an evolutionary manner,
with little interpretation of the historical information. In
addition, less historical attention has been given to the Jews
in the South than in any other section of America. Knowl-
edge of southern Jewish life is therefore less than thorough.
The works of historians Jacob Marcus and Bertram Kom
stand as significant exceptions to the general neglect of the
Jewish experience in the South.

According to the second theory, the American obsession

1 16 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

with fear of the Jew which began in the period 1913 to
1920 was essentially something new. This fear was mani-
fested in economic and social discrimination, even in polit-
ical action. For the most part, this anti-Semitism was pro-
duced by the First World War, a time when many Americans
rejected every tie with Europe. Large numbers of East
European and Russian Jews had, of course, emigrated to
the United States beginning in the 1880s and this contin-
ued through to the war years.

In addition to the fear of foreigners during this period,
the disappointment of many radicals and reformers who
somehow came to blame the Jews for their failure after
1900, contributed to the rise of anti-Semitism. One group
of radicals and reformers were the bimetalist supporters,
who advocated currency reforms in the American monetary
system. Bimetalism called for the use of both gold and silver
as the monetary standard of value and currency; and the
bimetalists sought to explain their defeats throughout the
1890s by looking to an external power, often focusing on
the international Jewish banker.

The suspicion of the currency radicals regarding Jewish
financial control of the world's purse strings was supple-
mented by the cloak of mystery in which the American
popular mind had wrapped the Jew. However, the convic-
tion that there was a strange and mysterious Jew in the
United States did not assume the same demonic character
transmitted from the Middle Ages to nineteenth-century
Europe. Rather, the emphasis in this country was on inter-
pretations of the mission of Israel, which went back at least
two himdred years to Cotton Mather. Mather was a Puritan
clergyman and writer, best remembered for his part in the
Salem witch trials of 1692. He compiled a history of the
Jews in 1714 as part of his Biblia Americanuum^ a work
which contains misinformation about the Jews, at the same
time expressing the urgent need to convert them.

Even though the Jew was perceived in the American
popular mind to be mysterious, this mystery did not include

The Prejudice 117

elements of the demonic passed from generation to gener-
ation among the Christian population of Europe since the
eleventh century. During the Middle Ages, the Jews were
accused of blood libel or ritual murder (as in Norwich,
England, in 1144 and Blois, France, in 1171), desecration
of the Eucharist host, the communion wafer, which is the
symbolic body of Christ (as in 1243), and well-poisoning
(as during the Bubonic Plague of 1348-49). Blood libel,
which referred to the Jews' allegedly using the blood of a
Christian (usually a child) in their religious rites, resulted
in massacres and expulsions of Jews.

The authoritative book of Jewish commentary, the Tal-
mud, was believed to conceal secrets of Jewish magic.
Official ecclesiastical concern was so great that there were
four major Church-sponsored Talmud burnings, including
one in Paris, France. Many people believed that Jewish
religious ritual required the blood of Christians. The charge
of ritual murder often surfaced around Passover time, when
it was thought that Jews used the blood of a Christian child
to prepare the matzo for the I^sover meal. Russia's Beilis
affair, in 1911, was a modem example of this ancient
charge. During the Middle Ages, Jews were also portrayed
as the enemy and potential destroyer of Christianity and
Christendom, and as such were seen to be evil, sinister, and,
indeed, the devil himself. The Jews were perceived to be
essentially different from Christians. How else, it was ar-
gued, could Jews sustain their stubbornness in the face of
the Christian truth.

These medieval European conceptions of the Jew did not
take deep root here in America. With few exceptions, Jews
and Judaism have been allowed to live and grow here
without the severe impediments of European and Russian
governmental, religious, and popular anti-Semitism. And
there is nothing in the American Jewish experience in any
way similar to the major expulsions of Jews from European
nations and states: from England, in 1290; France, in 1306,
1322, and again in 1395; Spain, in 1492 (the same year in

1 18 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

which Columbus is credited with discovering the New
World); and Portugal, in 1497. Expulsion, enforced ghet-
toization, and economic restriction were a way of life for
Jews during the Middle Ages in nearly all parts of Europe.

The theory of anti-Semitism, which holds that the anti-
Jewish sentiment and actions of the years 1913-20 were
not previously seen in the United States, includes the notion
that there were stereotypic images of Jews that took shape
over the course of the second half of the nineteenth century.
Twentieth-century prejudices were, therefore, not built
completely on an empty foundation. By 1900, there was a
clearly defined Jewish stereotype in the collective American
mind.

Jewish interest in money was the most important part of
this distortion. The great fortunes of the world were seen
to be controlled and manipulated by greedy Jewish fingers.
The Jewish link to finance, so this theory holds, was
strengthened by the growing preoccupation of the Ameri-
can public with money, particularly following the economic
depression of 1893. And during the 1890s, the American
stereotype of the Jew "involved no hostility, no negative
judgment." The impact of this stereotype was blunted by
the fact that it was merely one of many ethnic prejudices
prevalent during that period of intensive immigration.

To account for the sense of fear from which the idea of a
Jewish conspiracy supposedly grew, this theory points to
the city as an object of dread and fascination. To the city,
and particularly New York, entire parts of the South and
West felt themselves in bondage. In the United States, Jews,
more than any other group, were associated with the city
through their dealings in commerce. "If all trade was treach-
ery and Babylon the city, then the Jew — ^stereotyped, in-
volved in finance, and mysterious — stood ready to be as-
signed the role of arch-conspirator."

In the context of this theory, Leo Frank was perceived to
be from the dreaded Yankee city of Brooklyn and could be
coimted among the well-to-do of Atlanta. Because of the

The Prejudice 119

blurred conception of German and East European Jew in
the popular Atlanta mind, Frank would also have been seen
as one of the group of foreigners invading the Gate City.

The other major theory of the rise of anti-Semitism in
the United States is more complex because it contains the
ideas of several historians. The period when anti-Jewish
discrimination emerged in America is seen as early as the
1870s and as late as the 1890s. (The period from 1870 to
1890 in this country has been called the Gilded Age.) The
longstanding ambivalence toward the Jew in American pub-
lic attitudes is also emphasized.

In the imagination of nineteenth-century America, Jews
were both the instruments as well as unwilling witnesses of
Divine purpose, and they represented the virtues and vices
of modem business. The religious aspects of the popular
conception of the Jew reach back to the writings and
teachings of Saint Paul, who believed the Torah or Jewish
scriptures had been superceded by the Cross as the means
of man's salvation. In the centuries that followed, Jews came
to be seen as living reminders of God's victory in Christ
and also as necessary players in the pageant of final redemp-
tion.

The official Church dogma tovs^ird the Jews in the medi-
eval period held that Jews were to serve as witnesses to the
truth of Christianity. As witnesses, they were to be pro-
tected, yet subject to limitations. Jews could not hold public
office; in certain countries they had to wear special Jewish
clothing, including a yellow "Jew badge" and headgear; and
they were prohibited from building new synagogues or
houses of worship. The enforced wearing of the yellow star
by the National Socialists (Nazis) during the 1930s and
early 1940s had its origin in the official policies of the
Roman Catholic Church during the Middle Ages.^

According to one line of thinking, the Southern image
of the Jew had always been ambivalent: half biblical
patriarch (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are considered the
biblical patriarchs) and half Christ-killer; half legitimate

120 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

entrepreneur and half Shylock"^, the ruthless usurer in
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (1595). Usury is money-
lending at extremely high rates of interest, and it is consid-
ered to be a sin in Roman Catholic teachings.

Although anti-Jewish prejudice did exist in nineteenth-
century America, it was largely offset by other ideas that
emphasized the essential equality of all white men and the
many opportunities available for those who worked hard —
the Protestant work ethic. A distinction needs to be made,
however, between actual social relations and stereotypes or
ideas. The prevalence of good relations in the nineteenth
century does not mean that American attitudes toward Jews
were ever completely favorable.

Unfavorable attitudes about an ethnic group do not
necessarily determine social interaction with members of
that group on an individual level. Because Jews as a group
were viewed to be foreign, preoccupied with money, and
mysterious did not necessarily mean that each individual
Jew directly was branded with that stereotype. In the South,
as well as other sections of the country, non-Jews who
resented Jews and desired to restrict their political influence
nevertheless accepted the usefulness of Jewish merchants
and artisans to the local economies.

Prejudice and discrimination are not the same thing, nor
does discrimination necessarily follow directly from preju-
dice: Prejudicial attitudes may lead to actual discrimination
for many reasons; and conflicting attitudes and feelings
frequently exist side by side. But for practical reasons these
deep prejudices are not always allowed to come to the
surface.

Insofar as nineteenth-century Atlanta is concerned, sev-
eral factors blunted the expression of the negative elements
in the popular conception of the Jew. The relatively small
numbers of West European Jews in Adanta before 1880,
the assimilationist tendencies of the Jewish community
there, and the involvement of Jews in general public life
contributed to their acceptance by the Adanta populace.

The Prejudice 121

Furthermore, Jews benefited from the doctrine of white
supremacy; and in Adanta more than any other Southern
community, entrepreneurial ability was thought to be a
special virtue. What changed the character and public con-
ception of the Atlanta Jewish community was the arrival of
the Russian Jewish immigrants. This new horde produced
a wave of anti- Jewish discrimination, and it was the catalyst
that inspired the anti-Semitic outbursts that dominated the
Frank trial and led to the tragedy.

It has been suggested that regional attitudes have had
more negative impact on Jews in the South than in other
sections of the United States. In the last third of the
nineteenth century, many Jews in the South "served as
scapegoats for a society unable to cope with — or recog-
nizee — the major sources of its grievances.'' The rural popu-
lation, for example, held Jews responsible for economic
turmoil, as a result of people feeling in bondage to the
merchant or peddler. Many Jews were small merchants and
peddlers, traditional occupations brought with them from
Europe, for a host of complex social, ecclesiastical, and
political reasons. Leading personalities in Southern com-
munities also sanctioned negative images of Jews.

Whether the rise of anti-Semitism is marked at 1870-90
or 1913-20, the causes of this phenomenon are significant.
Again, two theories are advanced, one economic, the other
ideological.

According to the economic theory, "discrimination is-
sued not from primarily irrational, subjective impulses but
rather from a very real competition for social status and
prestige.'' Stereotypes made discrimination possible, but
did not create it. "In times of economic crisis or when the
poor felt particularly victimized, the predatory Jew reap-
peared in public discussions." Conditions that heightened
white antagonisms against blacks in Adanta, such as the
racial riot of 1906, also worsened relations between Jews
and non-Jews. According to Leonard Dinnerstein, these
conditions revolved around a discontented urban working

122 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

class forced to endure low wages, crowded and uncomfort-
able tenement housing, and litde hope for any improvement
in the future. The fear of racial pollution inflated the
negative conditions created by the economic upheaval. By
the 1890s, the Jews were considered to be racially and
religiously different and inferior within a pattern of south-
em social thinking dominated by conformity.

Supporters of the economic theory suggest that the anti-
Semitism, which most closely affected American Jewry from
1830 to 1930, owed very litde to stereotypic thinldng or
ideological sources. During the Gilded Age, the established
pattem of urban life in America was disrupted by the
general struggle for rank, status, and privilege. Anti-Semitic
demonstrations provided a tool to stabilize the social lad-
der.

Although several historians maintain that discrimination
began at the top of American society and spread downward,
others argue that "discrimination can arise more or less
simultaneously at every social level where a crush of appli-
cants poses an acute problem of admission. Discrimination
is probably much less a game of follow-the-leader than one
of limiting the followers.'' According to this theory, Jews in
America met with litde economic discrimination before
about 1910, because they had not entered the popular labor
markets. Anti-Jewish social discrimination came much ear-
lier, however.

Three periods of intense anti-Semitism in America have
been identified — and they correspond with similar periods
in Europe: the 1880s and 1890s, the years after the First
World War, and the 1930s.

The last two decades of the nineteenth century saw the
Dreyfus affair in France along with the anti-Semitic writ-
ings of Edouard-Adolphe Drumont and Karl Eugen Dueh-
ring in France and Germany, respectively. The years im-
mediately following the First World War were marked by
the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, immigration restrictions in
the United States, Henry Ford Fs Dearborn Independent^

The Prejudice 123

widespread distribution of the Protocols of the Elders ofZion
in Europe, and the formation of the National Socialist
(Nazi) political party in Germany. The rise of Nazism in
Germany and anti-Semitic regimes in Poland and Hungary
darkened the 1930s.

The German economist and philosopher Karl Eugen
Duehring was one of the early advocates of racial anti-
Semitism and was to have a profound influence on the
development of German anti-Semitism in the 1880s.
Duehring argued in Die Judenjrage ah Racen-Sitten- und
Cultuffra^e that "a Jewish question will still exist, even if
every Jew were to turn his back on his religion and join one
of our major churches. . . . Jews are to be defined solely on
the basis of race, and not on the basis of religion." Nazism
promoted racial anti-Semitism, although it drew heavily on
the images of the Jew nurtured by religious anti-Semitism
and the support of populations exposed to anti- Jewish
religious teaching and preaching.

Beginning in May 1920, the Ford-owned Dearborn Inde-
pendent of Dearborn, Michigan, carried anti-Semitic prop-
aganda for nearly seven years. A May 22, 1920, article was
entided 'The International Jew: The World's Problem.'' The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion^ with its theme of a Jewish
conspiracy to rule the world, was serialized in the Ford
journal. Even the combined efforts of President William
Taft, President Woodrow Wilson and a group of 1 19 distin-
guished Americans, and the Federal Council of Churches
could not convince the automobile manufacturer to aban-
don his project. Finally, in 1927, when a Jewish attorney
from Detroit brought a libel suit against the Dearborn
Independent, Ford repudiated his anti-Semitism and issued
a public apology that appeared in the nation's leading daily
newspapers. But anti-Semitic literature supported by Ford's
money continued to enjoy wide circulation.

Concocted in Paris in the last decades of the nineteenth
century by an imknown author working purportedly for
the Russian secret police, the Protocols of the Elders ofZion

124 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

were probably intended to influence the policy of Czar
Nicholas II toward the interests of the secret police. They
were first published in Russia at the beginning of this
century and then translated into several languages after the
First World War. They were distributed in the United States
by Ford under the title, The Jewish Perils an anti-Semitic
literary hoax intended to show the existence of an interna-
tional Jewish conspiracy intent on world domination. Adolf
Hitler's obsession with a worldwide Jewish conspiracy was
apparently derived, in part, from the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion^ which was translated into German in 1920. This work
continues to enjoy circulation in the Soviet Union, certain
Arab nations, and, more recently, in Japan.

In the 1880s and 1890s, there were primarily three
groups in American society that harbored and manifested
significant anti- Jewish feelings: Agrarian rebels in the Pop-
ulist movement; certain eastern patrician intellectuals (such
as Henry Adams, Brooks Adams, and Henry Cabot Lodge);
and the immigrant, urban poor. What these disparate
groups had in common was a pervasive social discontent
and nationalistic aggression. Each group discovered itself
to be at a particular disadvantage in the dislocations of the
industrialization process in America. The poor were discon-
tented because industrialization often exploited them; the
patrician class because it displaced them from positions of
influence.

The Industrial Revolution spread to the United States
from England and Germany following the Civil War. In
England, industrialization had developed in the period
1750-1850; German industrialization began after 1850.
The brothers Henry and Brooks Adams were historians.
Henry Cabot Lodge, a United States Senator from Massa-
chusetts, was a conservative Republican who led the fight
against the Treaty of \fersailles and the League of Nations
after the First World War. "It is not too much to say that
the Greenback-Populist tradition activated most of what we
have of modern popular anti-Semitism in the United
States," one historian concludes. There, in fact, has been a

The Prejudice 125

persistent link between anti-Semitism and money and credit
obsessions. Individuals advocating this obsession included
Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Henry and Brooks Adams,
poet Ezra Pound, and Right Reverend Charles Coughlin.
The latter, a Roman Catholic priest and radio orator in the
period after the Great Depression, envisioned currency
reform schemes such as the abolition of the Federal Reserve
System.

Historian Richard Hofstadter argues that populism can-
not be viewed simply in the narrow sense of the People's or
Populist Party of the 1890s. Rather, it should be viewed as
the larger trend of thought originating at the time of
Andrew Jackson's presidency (1829-37) and coming to-
gether after the Civil War in the Greenback, Granger, and
anti-monopoly movements.

The Greenback party was a political organization formed
between 1874 and 1876 to promote currency expansion in
the wake of the 1873 depression. Its membership was
primarily western and southern farmers and it mostly dis-
solved after the 1884 national election. Taking its name
from the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, the
Granger movement was an agrarian organization which
expanded rapidly after the economic panic of 1873.

Populism expressed the discontent of many farmers and
businessmen with the far-reaching economic changes of the
late 1800s. It was the first modem political movement of
practical importance in the United States to insist that the
federal government accept some responsibility for the com-
mon welfare. It was also the first popular movement to
attack industrialism.

Populist thinking has survived to the present day as an
undercurrent of popular and "democratic rebelliousness
and suspiciousness along with nativism." Populists were not
alone in conceiving the events of their own day to be a
conspiracy. The entire flow of American history after the
Civil War was viewed by the Populists as a conspiracy of
international money power. The farmer, for example, was

126 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

not seen as a "speculating businessman, victimized by the
risk economy of which he is a part, but rather a wounded
yeoman, preyed upon by those who are alien to the life of
folkish virtue." This conspiracy view of history was devel-
oped in the novel entided Caesar^s Column^ by Populist
leader Ignatius Donnelly. It was the Populist writers who
identified the Jew with the usurer and the "international
gold ring," the central theme of American anti-Semitism at
the time. Populist anti-Semitism was almost entirely verbal,
however. It was a rhetorical style, not a tactic or program
and it did not result in exclusion laws, riots, or pogroms.
The Populists did exhibit — ^in particularly virulent form — a
fear and suspicion of the stranger.

The conduct of Georgia Populist leader and politician
Thomas E. Watson had direct bearing on the Leo Frank
case and its ultimate tragedy. During 1914-15, Watson^s
Magazine and The Jcffersonian "fanned the flames of anti-
Semitism with an unrelenting storm of slanderous com-
mentary." Leo Frank was a "Jew Pervert," a degenerate, and
a Sodomite according to Watson^s Magazine. Governor John
Slaton was "the infamous governor" for having commuted
Frank's sentence.

As late as 1899, however, Watson was vigorously con-
demning medieval practices against Jews. This well-man-
nered and charming southern gendeman also defended a
Jew against the charge of murder. Fifteen years before Leo
Frank was lynched, Watson assisted in the defense of a
merchant named Sigmund Lichtenstein. This young Jew
had been charged in Adrian, Georgia, with killing a Gentile,
the first cousin of the town's mayor. Historian Louis
Schmeir notes that Thomas Watson finished his thirty-
minute closing oration to the jury by saying that "No Jew
can do murder."

The people most adamant in their demands for the
conviction of Leo Frank were the committed followers of
Tom Watson. Many historians, however, find litde evidence
that the Populists as a group were more anti-Semitic than
other groups in American society. The Populists provide an

The Prejudice 127

excellent example of diverse and conflicting attitudes to-
wards Jews existing side by side in the collective American
mind. Populists and other currency reformers who envi-
sioned the "Shylocks of Europe'' arrayed against the work-
ing farmers and businessmen of America were precisely
those groups most deeply imbued with and influenced by
the best traditions of American democracy and Christianity.

*

Two contrasting interpretations of American anti-Semi-
tism have emerged. The first, given its fiillest expression in
the writing of Carey McWilliams, appeared in the 1930s.
This view included "a worried and aroused sensitivity to
ethnic conflict, an interest in its conservative or reactionary
manifestations, and an economic interpretation of its ori-
gins. . . . American anti-Semitism was traced to the indus-
trial revolution of the 1870s and was attributed to the
assault of big business upon our democratic heritage."

The second interpretive theory, labeled neo-liberal or
revisionist, was given its fullest expression around 1950.
This approach minimizes the impact and pervasiveness of
anti-Semitism in America and finds the origins of anti-
Semitism in the realm of ideas rather than economic forces.
The harmony and unity of American society are empha-
sized.

There is the tendency to concentrate on the need of the
anti-Semite for a scapegoat in both theories. Neither view-
point is prepared to accept the "role that the minority
group itself plays in the conflict situation.'' The target of
discrimination may, in fact, participate in and contribute to
the discriminatory process. The tendency among certain
groups of Jews to voluntarily separate from society has led
to a general perception of "clanishness." Separation limits
the contact necessary for the possibility of general public
understanding.

128 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

*

Leo Frank was a family man, Cornell graduate, and
superintendent of a business, who was lynched for a murder
many thought he did not commit. And his murder occurred
in the twentieth century just outside the largest and fastest
growing city in the South.

Almost four years after Leo Frank was hanged in a tree
outside of Marietta, United States District Attorney H.
Alexander recalled the Frank case at a mass meeting held in
Adanta. The meeting was to protest the persecution and
murder of Jews in Poland and other countries of Eastern
Europe; but not until the real murderer in the Phagan case
was found and convicted, said the district attorney, could
the people of Georgia protest Poland's crimes.

But it should also be noted that the American Jews
themselves were not without anti-Semitic prejudices such as
existed at the time of the Frank trial and lynching. By 1915,
Moses Alexander of Idaho was the only Jew to reach the
position of state governor in America. Although Governor
Alexander felt Jews should be active in politics, he also
thought they should stop thinking of themselves as a dis-
tinct religious nation and "become true citizens of the
United States on a broad basis of Christian brotherhood.''

In an interview in Boston with The Christian Science
Monitor^ the governor said he would not appoint any Jews
to office during his administration. He went on to say that
"if the Jew would take a more liberal view of life and its
Christian relations and not pay so much attention to mak-
ing money, he would go a long way toward establishing a
more liberal condition for himself"

Moses Alexander did not wish to be seen as a Jew, but as
a citizen of the United States. If the State of Idaho were
filled with and governed by Jews, the governor said he
would move out.

*

The Prejudice 1 29

At this date, more than seventy years removed from that
day when litde Mary Phagan was murdered, it is still
difficult to zsscss the prejudices and emotions that domi-
nated the period. But perhaps the instinctive assessment of
the Atlanta pastor. Dr. Luther O. Bricker, provides us with
the best clue as to what happened in Georgia in 1913. Dr.
Bricker, of course, knew litde Mary Phagan, having taught
her in his Bible School, and he revealed his thoughts back
at the time of her murder, shordy before he died in 1942.
He wrote: "My own feelings, upon the arrest of the old
negro night-watchman, were to the effect that this one old
negro would be poor atonement for the life of this litde
girl. But, when on the next day, the police arrested a Jew,
and a Yankee Jew at that, all of the inborn prejudice against
the Jews rose up in a feeling of satisfaction, that here would
be a victim worthy to pay for the crime."^

Endnotes

1. In the thirty years, from 1889 to 1918, 3,224 people were lynched
by mobs in this country — 702 whites and 2,522 blacks. Nearly 80
percent of the viaims were black. Georgia led the nation "in this unholy
ascendancy," with 386 lynchings, followed by Mississippi (373), Texas
(335), Lx)uisiana (313), and Alabama (276). The number of whites
lynched decreased steadily from 1903. Women accounted for 1.5 percent
of the total number of people lynched during this period. The summer
of 1915 saw seven lynchings in Georgia, all for alleged murder and/or
rape. See Thirty Tears ofLynchinpf in the United States 1889-1918.

2. See works by Leonard Dinnerstein, John Higham, Oscar Handlin,
Richard Hofstadter, and Steven Hertzberg.

3. See also Joshua Trachtenberg's The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval
Conception of the Jew and Its Relation to Modem Anti-semitism.

4. Steven Hertzberg, "The Jewish Community of Atlanta from the
End of the Civil War to the Eve of the Frank Case" in r^c^ American Jewish
Historical Quarterly ( 1 9 73 ) .

5. See L. O. Bricker, "A Great American Tragedy" in the Shane
Quarterly (1943),

Chapter 10

THE EPILOGUE

After more than seventy years and the deaths of all the
L principals in the case, the questions of guilt and inno-
cence seem to lose much of their meaning. The legacy left
by the Frank case was one of pain and bitterness and for the
Phagan family there is still the anguish caused by the
murder of a beautifiil little girl.

The Phagan family went separate ways in the 1920s, with
many members of the family moving out of Georgia, and
Mary Phagan (the great-niece of the murdered girl) says
that the tragedy they all had suffered in 1913 contributed
to the exodus. Ollie Phagan, she believes, moved to Vir-
ginia. Ollie's daughter is still living. Little Mary Phagan's
brother, Charlie, has a daughter who now makes her home
in Texas. Mary Phagan is the oldest of her father's children.

There was also the sadness and loneliness of the Franks
and Seligs, who lost their loved one to the hangman's
noose. After Leo Frank was buried in New York, Lucille
found employment in a woman's dress shop outside of
Georgia for several years. When she returned to Atlanta,
she worked in a department store for a time. She was also
active in the work of the Hebrew Temple, and she spent the
majority of her remaining years protesting her husband's

131

132 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

innocence. Although a young woman at the time of Leo's
death, Lucille never remarried. And according to friends,
she always proudly signed her name, "Mrs. Leo Frank."
Lucille Frank died on April 23, 1957, at the age of sixty-
nine. The Franks never had children.

The trial testimony, the affidavits, the letters, and the
interviews strongly suggest that Jim Conley murdered little
Mary Phagan. Alonzo Mann believed Conley was guilty, as
did William Smith, Judge Powell, and Attorney A. L.
Henson. When asked her reaction to the lynching, Mary
Phagan said that her family had strong feelings on that
subject — but she would not state what those feelings were.

Jim Conley served a year in a chain gang for being an
accessory after the fact in the killing of Mary Phagan. He
was convicted on February 24, 1914, and sentenced to a
year in jail, ensuring that the former factory sweeper could
not be tried again for Mary Phagan's murder. In 1919,
Conley was shot and slighdy wounded while trying to break
into a drug store in Adanta owned by Arthur Conn, also a
black man. For this crime he was sentenced to serve twenty
years in the state penitentiary. The Adanta police picked
him up in 1941 for gambling and arrested him once again,
in 1947, on a charge of public drunkenness. Conley died in
1962.

The Knights of Mary Phagan who rode in automobiles
that night in 1915, formed the core of the new Ku Klux
Klan, which had been disbanded in 1869. In the late fall of
1915, "Colonel" William Joseph Simmons^ (the tide was
honorary in the Woodmen of the World), a preacher,
salesman, and fraternal organizer from Alabama, became
the new Imperial Wizard of the Invisible Empire.

The inauguration ceremony for the new Ku Klux Klan
took place at midnight on Thanksgiving Eve, 1915. Colonel
Simmons had hired a sightseeing tour bus to drive his
followers eighteen miles from Adanta to Stone Mountain,
which towers sixteen hundred feet above the surrounding
plain, the largest mass of exposed granite in the world.

TheEpilo£fue 133

Using flashlights, the men picked their way to the top and
erected a "crude altar and a base for the cross of pine boards
which Simmons had brought there that afternoon." The
cross was padded with wood shavings and soaked with
kerosene. Colonel Simmons touched a match to the cross,
and beneath its fiery blaze the Ku Klux Klan was reborn. A
Bible open to Romans 12 was part of the ceremony. 'The
passions and prejudices of the modern Ku Klux Klan had
been widely accepted dogmas in the South for generations
before the secret, terroristic society was revitalized."^

The following year an area of Stone Mountain was dedi-
cated as the site for a carved memorial to the Confederacy.
This striking carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and
Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson on the sheer face of the moun-
tain is the focal point of present-day Stone Mountain park.

The State of Georgia gave the new K.K.K. corporate
rights by issuing it a charter. Membership in this fraternal
order was open to native-bom, white, Protestant males 16
and older. Blacks, Roman Catholics, and Jews were not
permitted to become members. In 1921, the Klan acquired
the former Atlanta home of Edward M. Durant, at the
corner of Peachtree Road and East Wesley Road, which
would serve as an Imperial Palace. It was not until 1947
that Georgia revoked the Klan's charter. Despite its heri-
tage, "the Georgia Klan seldom directed its violence toward
Jew, Roman Catholic, and Negro."

And Mary Phagan's memory lived on within the Ku Klux
Klan in northern Georgia. The Klan wanted to observe a
"Mary Phagan Remembrance Day" in the 1970s, and in
1983 it laid a wreath on the girPs grave in Marietta after a
march through town. With the War \feteran's monument at
the head of Mary's grave, there seems to be a strong link
from Confederacy to Klan to the memory of the murdered
girl.

Perhaps Governor Slaton had not really done Leo Frank
a favor by commuting his sentence. If he had been executed
by the State, he would not have suffered the throat slashing

134 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

and would at least have had the dignity of a few last words
with family and friends. If he had been awaiting pardon, he
might have spent sixty years languishing behind bars with
no real hope of release.^

The families of John Slaton and William Smith have had
to endure years of threats and criticism, and in the wake of
the lynching, the Jewish community in Atlanta lived with
travima and fear for decades. The wound left by the Frank
case on Atlanta's Jews was very slow to close. One former
resident of the Gate City contends that it was only with the
bombing of the Temple there on October 12, 1958, that a
scar began to form.

Janice Rothschild Blumberg calls it 'The Bomb That
Healed.'*'* Her late husband, Jacob Rothschild, was rabbi of
the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation (the Temple) at the
time of the bombing. Nineteen fifty-eight was a time in an
era when reprisals for speaking out on civil rights drew very
violent reactions. The outpouring of general commvinity
support in the wake of the bomb blast helped to restore the
confidence of Jews living in Adanta. Though money was
not requested, thousands of dollars were sent to the Temple
by concerned Christian individuals and church groups.

And Alonzo Mann lived nearly seventy years with a
burdensome secret. The violence in 1913 led to more
violence in 1915, which, in turn, produced years of fear,
gmlt, and pain.

The Frank case affected the political lives of several
prominent Georgians and altered the course of Georgia
politics for decades. Governor John M. Slaton was an
immediate political casualty. Only three years earlier in
1912, Slaton had won the governorship by one of the
largest margins ever. The ex-governor and his wife, having
been warned by Adanta's Mayor Woodward not to return
to Georgia, went on an extended tour of America and the
world. When he returned to Georgia, Slaton resumed his
practice of law in Atlanta. The University of Georgia con-
ferred upon him an honorary LL.D. degree in 1922, and

TheEpilq0ue 135

Oglethorpe University in Atlanta did the same a few years
later. In 1928, the former governor was unanimously
elected president of the Georgia Bar Association. He was
defeated in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1930. Slaton died
on January 11, 1955 at the age of eighty-eight. William
Smith died a year later. Mrs. Slaton had died in 1945.

The fact that John Slaton was not only able to return to
Georgia but was also able to assume positions of some
authority may be related to Tom Watson's death. Had
Watson lived for another fifteen to twenty years, Slaton's
personal and professional life would probably have been
quite different. Tom Watson himself rode the tide of state
public support to a seat in the United States Senate in
1920. His victory, by a margin of nearly 40,000 popular
votes, was over his former ally Hugh Dorsey. But then,
Watson died in September 1922 from an attack of bronchi-
tis and asthma.

In 1916, Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey faced disqualification
during other litigation. By his own admission, he had
accepted a $1,000 fee from the family of two sisters who
had disappeared and were presumed murdered. But this did
not hurt Dorsey's^ political ambitions. He was elected
governor of Georgia in 1916, running unopposed. He was
supported by Thomas E. Watson, whose incendiary writ-
ings in Jeffersonian magazine had much to do with inflaming
public feeling against Leo Frank in Arianta and throughout
Georgia.

Dorsey charged that an "enormous slush fimd" had been
created to ensure his defeat in the gubernatorial election.
He named former Governor John Slaton as a major contrib-
utor to the fund and argued that Slaton had written letters
to various people claiming Dorsey to be unfit for the
governorship. In a statement issued before the Georgia
primary election in 1915, Dorsey said that "the attitude of
that race [Jewish] in the Frank case and in every criminal
case in which a Hebrew is a defendant has demonstrated
the fact that the successftil prosecution of a Hebrew is

136 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

regarded by members of diat race as persecution." Louis
Marshall of the American Jewish Committee called Dorsey's
statement an "attempt to seek votes by stirring up religious
animosity." Dorsey was reelected unopposed to the gover-
norship in 1918. During his second term in office, he was
known for his "fearless denunciation of lynching."

In 1921, Dorsey wrote and distributed a pamphlet called
'The Negro in Georgia" expounding on the need to end
outrages against blacks. He believed that compulsory edu-
cation for blacks and whites alike, conferences with both
races to discuss interrelations, and proper religious instruc-
tion would improve relations between blacks and whites.

In addition to the political repercussions, the lynching of
Leo Frank affected Georgia's sentiment toward American
intervention in the war in Europe. At a time when the
honor of the State of Georgia was blemished by the Frank
case, patriotism emerged as a significant statement of pride
and closeness to the Union. In an effort to rid themselves
of recendy embarrassing associations with Tom Watson and
his anti- Wilson stand, most Georgians tended to embrace
the most nationalistic cause of all — ^preparedness for war.^

Perhaps the most enduring legacy of the Frank case is the
role it played in the formation of the Anti-Defamation
League of B'nai B'rith in 1913. B'nai B'rith (Sons of the
Covenant) was founded in New York City in 1843 and it is
the world's oldest and largest Jewish service organization.
Initiated with the help of Adolf Kraus, the Anti-Defama-
tion League (ADL) works under the auspices of B'nai
B'rith. Through education, vigilance, and legislation, the
ADL has sought to provide "concerted action against the
constant and ever increasing efforts" to diminish the good
name of the Jew. The Leo Frank tragedy was the ADL's
first case. For over sixty-five years, the league collected
information and conducted interviews on the Phagan mur-
der and Frank trial and lynching. In 1982, it appeared that
finally the ADL's first case would be resolved.

TheEpilo0ue 137

*

Memory of the trial and lynching of Leo Frank has been
kept alive over the years in films, novels, plays, and nonfic-
tion accounts. Prior to the lynching at Marietta, Sam Adel-
stein and George Delands produced a film called The Frank
Case. But their Rolands Feature Film Company was forbid-
den to exhibit the film by the Commissioner of Licenses in
New York. It was alleged that Commissioner Doll's decision
was based on disapproval of the Frank film by the national
board of censors. Adelstein and Delands challenged the
Commissioner's ruling in the New York Supreme Court.

The novel. Death in the Deep South., by Ward Greene^
appeared in 1936 and served as the basis for a 1937 film
about the Frank case, "They Don't Forget." Death in the
Deep South is set in the 1930s, after the Frank and Scotts-
boro cases were no longer in the public eye. Leo. M. Frank:
The Martyr Jew was the title of a litde booklet by Azalia E.
De Steffani, probably printed before 1920. And Arthur
Powell published a book in 1942 called / Can Go Home
Again. Judge Powell sat on the judicial bench with Leonard
Roan while Roan was charging the jury in the Phagan
murder trial. "1 know who killed Mary Phagan," Powell
wrote, "but I know it in such a way that 1 can never make
the information public so long as certain people are living."
Arthur Powell died August 5, 1951. He had said he would
write down what he knew about the real murderer, but no
letter or statement has ever been found. However, Powell
did believe that Hugh Dorsey had "conscientiously followed
his duty as he saw it" in the Frank case. Hugh Dorsey, 77.,
died three years before Powell. The former solicitor general
and governor was then serving as Judge of the Superior
Court of Fulton County.

In 1952, Francis Busch included the Frank case in his
series of books on "Notable American Trials." Four years
later, Charles and Louise Samuels' treatment of the Frank
tragedy. Night Fell on Georgia, was published.

138 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

One of the most important books about the Frank case
was Harry Golden's A Little Girl Is Dead^ published in
1965. Charles Wittenstein, the ADL lawyer instrumental in
the pardon of Leo Frank, says that Golden's book was his
first real acquaintance with the Frank issue. In academic
circles, Dr. Leonard Dinnerstein's The Leo Frank Case^
published in 1968 by Columbia University, has served as
the standard work.

The television series "Profiles in Courage," inspired by
John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer-Prize winning book, covered the
aftermath of the Leo Frank trial in 1965. The Frank episode
was shown only once, "then withdrawn following threat of
a lawsuit by Tom Watson's great-grandson, Atlanta attorney
Tom Watson Brown." Brown "opposed seeing his great-
grandfather portrayed as an illiterate, dishonest, back-coun-
try demagogue," and rightly so. Actor Walter Matthau
played Governor Slaton in the show.

The play "Night Witch" was written by Barbara Lebeau
and performed in Atlanta at the Academy Theater. "Night
Witch" was the expression used in the murder notes found
near the body of Mary Phagan. These words probably
referred to "a Negro legend about a ghost — ^the night
witch — ^which killed litde children by strangling them with
a cord as they slept." Radio station WRFG (Radio Free
Georgia; 89.3 FM) planned a two-hour program on the
Leo Frank case several years ago. The first hour was to be a
"documentary composed of the reminiscences of Atlantans
who remember the episode." The second hour was to
feature a panel of humanists who were to "discuss broader
questions posed by the episode in an attempt to set the case
and Atlanta in a context that will help us imderstand the
pre- World War I period."

NBC television officials recently announced that the net-
work will make a four-and-a-half-hour mini-series based on
the Leo Frank case, with Academy Award-winning aaor
Jack Lemmon in the starring role of John Slaton, the
governor of Georgia who commuted Frank's sentence.

TheEpUqgue 139

Produced by George Stevens Jr., much of The Ballad of
Mary Fhagan was filmed during May and June of 1987 in
and around Richmond, Virginia. The script "is based on
work by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry."
The producer said that a script had been available in 1982,
but network management felt at that time that there was
not enough public interest to warrant a television drama.

And down through the years, litde Mary Phagan has also
endured in our folk music and poetry:

This ballad^ is from Ubapah (Deep Creek), Utah, circa
1925-27:

Link Mary Pha^fan
She went to tovm one day;
She went to the pencil factory
To£iet her little pay.
She left her home at seven^
She kissed her mother goodbye;
Not one time did that poor child
Think that she was going to die.

The wicked villain met her.
With a brutal heart we know;
He laughed and said, ^Little Mary,
Jbugo home no more.^
He crept along behind her
Till they reached the metal room;
He laughed and said, ^Little Mary,
Jdu^ve met your fatal doom,^
Newt Lee was the watchman.
And when he turned his key.
Away down in the basement
Little Mary he could see.
He called for the policemen
Their names I do not know;
They came to the pencil factory
And told Newt he must go.

140 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Jud£ie Roan passed the sentence^
7du bet he did not fail;
Solicitor Hugh Dorsey^
He sent the brute to jail.
Astonished at the question
The villain failed to say
Why he killed little Mary
Upon that holiday.

Her mother sits a-weeping^
She weeps and moans all day;
And hopes to meet her darling
In a better world some day.
Now come all you good people^
Wherever you may be;
Suppose that little Mary
Belonged to you or me,

Mrs. Pearl Flake from Adanta gave this version between
1939 and 1941:

Leo Frank he met her^
With a brutish heart and grin;
He says to little Mary^
^ou^ll never see home again, ^

She fell down on her knees

To Leo Frank and pled.

He picked up a stick from the trash pile

And beat her o^er the head.

The tears rolled down her cheeks.
The blood rolled down her back;
For she remembered telling her mother
What time she would be back, , , ,

Nemphon was the watchman;
He went to wind his key;

The Epilogue 141

And ^way down in the basement
Little Mary he could see.^

They took him to the jailhouse
And locked him in a cell;
That poor old innocent Ne£fro
Had nothin£i he could tell. . . .
Jud^e Roan passed the sentence;
Repassed it very well;
The Christian doers of heaven
Sent Leo Frank to hell.

Another version of the ballad blames the janitor, Jim
Conley:

When she got to the factory
The janitor let her in.
Instead of giving her her pay y
He did a dreadful sin.

Many long hours her mother wept
Over that evil day.
For Mary was her sole support
With her little pay.

The sheriff he was a wise good man.
He never flicked a hair;
He let them string that janitor up
And left him hanging there.

All versions have the same meter and can be sung to the
same tune despite their differences in content.

There is also a poem that deals with Mary Phagan's
murder. It has ten numbered stanzas, and obviously was
written before the commutation of Leo Frank's sentence in
June 1915.

142 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

MaryPhagan^

Bright as the morning light
And modest as the deWy
Came little Mary on the trolley car^
As often she did do.

Came to draw her money
And to see the parade that day;
She knew not that a murder
Was hiding on her way.

She entered the building gaily y
Straight to the office she went;
She reached her hand to get her pay ^
And so her life was spent.

While within the buildings

And near the metal room.

She fought for that which is dearer than life^

And so she met her doom,

NoWy while in that buildings
Though virtuous and modesty toOy
She was brutally murdered
By the Negro or the Jew,

The sady broken hearted mother y
As she cries and mourns all dayy
Looking for her darling child
Who can never come back that way.

The voice of the people
Is the voice of God they say.
So let us pray while we wait.
To hear what the court may say.

TheEpilqgue 143

A message came from heaven,
Tis in the bible today.
That whatsoever a man saweth
That shall he also reap that way.

Sweet as the fragrance of a dewey roscy
Pure as the drifted snoWy
She diedy defending her virtucy
By the cruel cord & blow.

Made a little below the angels
Her blood cries to heaven today;
Vengeance is minCy Saith the Lordy
And I will surely repay,

O God of [love] and mercy y

Thou knowest the guilty one

[Save?] the Governor of a sovereign statCy

By ruling that Justice be done.

Endnotes

1. Bom near Harpcrsficld, Alabama, in 1880, Simmons was the son
of a country preacher. He served in die Spanish- American War and later
began a career in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South. He left the ranks of the clergy to become a salesman of fraternal
insurance for the Woodmen of the World. "His varied career also
included a brief term as Instructor of Southern History at Atlanta's
faltering Lanier University," Kenneth T. Jackson noted. See also Ernest
\blkman's^ Legacy ofHute.

2. On December 6, 1915, The Birth of a Nation^-xhc first ftiU-length
motion picture in American history — opened to a wildly enthusiastic
audience in Adanta. The film, based on a novel of the Civil War and
Reconstruction by Thomas Dixon and direaed by David Ward GriflSth,
told the story of a "vanquished South" rescued just in time by the "hard-
riding horsemen of the Ku Klux Klan." William Simmons was able to
persuade the theater manager "to grant him free admission to sec The
Birth of a Nation time and again." The film electrified audiences in the
Old South for decades, and more than fifty million people nationwide

144 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

eventually saw the white-hooded riders save the day. See Kenneth T.
Jackson's The Ku Klux Klan in the City 1915-1930, Charlton Mosele/s
"Latent Klanism in Georgia, 1890-1915," and David Chslmcrs' Hooded
Americanism.

3. A man named Tom Mooney (1885-1942) was convicted by the
California courts in 1915 of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Not until twenty-four years later was he pardoned from jail. Mooney had
been convicted on testimony known by the prosecuting oflScers to be
perjured. (See Mark De Wolfe Howd*s Holmes-Laski Letters.)

4. "The blast ^yas more than a shock. It was a shock treatment. For
Jew and non-Jew alike the bomb released long buried thoughts about
themselves and each other. It blasted through the southern moderates'
wall of silence. All of 'the right people', from Georgia Governor Marvin
Griffin to President of the United States D wight D. Eisenhower, had
'the right thing to sa/ about the bombing and said it for publication."
(As But A Day)

5. Hugh Manson Dorsey succeeded Nathaniel Harris as governor in
1917. Like Slaton and Harris, Dorsey was a Methodist. Born in Fayette-
ville, Georgia, he was the son of Ruflis Thomas, an eminent jurist, and
Sarah (Bennett) Dorsey. Dorsey graduated with an A.B. degree from
the University of Georgia in 1893, then studied law at the University of
Virginia for one year. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1894 and
started practice in 1895 in Adanta with Dorsey, Brewster & Howell, his
father's firm. He was a member of that firm until 1916, resuming
connection with it after his second term as governor in June 1921. In
1910, Governor Joseph Brown appointed him Solicitor General of the
Adanta Judicial Circuit to complete the unexpired term of Charles D.
Hill. He subsequendy was elected to that position and served until his
resignation in 1916 to assume the office of governor of Georgia. One of
the high points of his career as Solicitor was his brilliant 9-hour summa-
tion speech at the end of Leo Frank's trial.

Dorsey married Mary Adair Wilkinson in June 191 1. He was the father
of two children, and belonged to the Masons. His father-in-law, James
Marion Wilkinson, was the vice-president of the Georgia & Florida
Railroad.

Thomas William Hardwick, a Protestant lawyer, became governor in
1921 following the two terms of Hugh Dorsey. Hardwick failed in his
reelection attempt in 1922 because he had waged a campaign against the
Ku Klux Klan, demanding an end to the mob violence in Georgia.
Cliffi^rd Mitchell Walker assumed the office of governor in 1923. He ran
unopposed and was reelected unopposed once again in 1924.

During Walker's administration, Georgia received national criticism
for its officially sanctioned cruelty to the prisoners. Walker angered the

The EpUo£fue 145

Ku Klux Klan when the use of the lash in prison camps was abolished
through his efforts.

Both Governor Slaton and Hugh Dorsey were members of many of
the same clubs and fraternal organizations in Atlanta, including the
Masons, Capital City Driving Club, Piedmont Driving Club, and the
Odd Fellows.

6. See Milton L. Rcad/s "Georgia's Entry into World War I."

7. Events in Ward Greene's book were similar to the Frank case, but
had certain distinct differences. The accused, Robert Edwin Perry Hale,
was not Jewish, although he was a northerner. The setting was a business
school in the South of the 1930s. The victim, thirteen-year-old Mary
Clay, had been murdered and raped on Confederate Memorial Day.
Suspects included Mary's boyfriend and a black elevator operator at the
school. At one point Hale was compared to Leo Frank, with the idea
conveyed that Frank had been innocent while Hale was not.

A local barber was directed by a police detective (under instructions
from the prosecutor) to leave town during Hale's pre-trial investigation.
This barber could verify Hale's whereabouts at the most likely time of
the murder, thereby damaging the prosecution's case. The prosecutor
was, like Hugh Dorsey, trying to make his way in politics and needed a
conviction to advance his career. Hale's course mirrored Frank's insofar
as he was found guilty, sentenced to hang, his sentence commuted by
the governor, and then he was lynched. Greene never resolved the drama
as far as telling the reader who did the killing, whether Hale or another.

8. From Olive Woolley Burt, American Murder Ballads and Their
Stories Oxford University Press, 1958.

9. This poem was found in the Special Collections Department of the
Robert W. Woodruff Library of Emory University in die "Adanta
Miscellany Box" 572 #2. Its origin is unknown.

Chapter 11

THE PARDON

Although he testified only briefly at the trial, fourteen-
year-old Alonzo Mann^ was also at the pencil factory
on that overcast Saturday morning in August of 1913.
Mann, an office boy at the factory, was "standing in a
stairwell moments after the crime." In a sworn statement,
Mann said he saw Jim Conley carrying the limp body of the
girl on the first floor of the factory near the trap door that
led to the basement. But his affidavit came nearly seven
decades after the fact.

Jim Conley saw young Alonzo that Memorial Day and
threatened to kill him if he ever mentioned what he had
witnessed. Alonzo took a trolley home and told his mother
what had happened. His mother cautioned him not to
become involved, although Mann did testify at the trial.
After Leo Frank was convicted of the murder, Alonzo's
mother and father told their son there was nothing anyone
could do to change the jury's verdict. So young Alonzo
learned to live with his vision of Jim Conley carrying the
dead or unconscious Mary Phagan in his arms.

Occasionally, Mann would tell his story to friends and
relatives, but no one really listened to him or took him
seriously. Once, when he was in the service during World
War I, he fought with somebody from Marietta, Georgia,

147

148 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

about it. Another time, he hired a lawyer who chose not to
pursue the story. In the 1950s, Mann gave information
about what he saw in 1913 to a reporter from the Atlanta
Constitution and Journal^ the editor supposedly said the
story would not be run because the Atlanta Jewish commu-
nity would not want to have the case brought up again. The
editor was probably correct; and, of course, Mrs. Frank was
still alive then. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Seligs,
Lucille Frank's family, had asked ADL's attorney Charles
Wittenstein to quiet publicity about the case. The trial and
lynching of Leo Frank had left such scars on the collective
memory of the Jews in Atlanta that they were afraid to raise
the issue for fear of bringing back the rabid anti-Semitism
they remembered.

Wittenstein is a pleasant, white-haired man in his late
fifties. Except for a span of about fifteen months, he has
lived in Atlanta continuously since 1952. For fourteen
years, he served as the Director of the American Jewish
Committee and worked an equal time as Southern counsel
for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. And he
maintains that if Mann had convinced someone of his story
fifteen years earlier than he did, the ADL could have done
very little with it. Support within the Jewish community
simply would not have been there. Jews in the generation
that had lived through the Frank tragedy would not have
favored any effort to seek a pardon.

A reporter from The Nashville Tennessean was the first
person to give a receptive audience to Alonzo Mann. And
it came about through a rather circuitous series of events.
Jerry Thompson, a reporter for the Tennessean^ had infil-
trated the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama as part of an assign-
ment to investigate Klan involvement in a mayoral race.
Thompson joined two competing Klan groups — one led by
David Duke and the other by Bill Wilkinson. After about
fifteen months he surfaced and began publishing articles
about the Klan. Death threats soon followed. The publisher
of the paper, John Seigenthaler, hired two bodyguards for

The Pardon 149

Thompson, one to live full-time at his farm and the other
to go with Thompson on speaking engagements; he had
become very popular as a speaker. He also went on tempo-
rary leave from the Tennessean in order to write a book
about his experiences, eventually titled My Life in the Klan.
One day when Thompson and his live-in guard (Robert
Mann) were relaxing, the guard asked Thompson if he
would be interested in doing a story on a famous murder
case. Alonzo Mann — known to friends as Lonnie — ^was the
bodyguard's close relative.

When Thompson first told Seigenthaler that he had new
information on a case that took place severity years ago in
Adanta, the publisher said the readers of the Tennessean
would not be interested. Thompson and his friend, fellow
reporter Robert Sherborne, later went to a trailer home in
Bristol, Virginia, to visit Lonnie Mann and hear his story.
They called Seigenthaler from Bristol. When Thompson
told him that it was the Leo Frank case, Seigenthaler^ said
to move on it. The publisher knew about the tragedy.

A team from the Tennessean — including Jerry Thompson,
Bob Sherborne, Sandra Roberts, and Nancy Wamecke
Rhoda — ^spent several months pouring over court records
and published accounts^ of the Frank case to confirm
Mann's story. The newspaper's credibility was at stake.
Several minor discrepancies in Mann's recollection of events
that Memorial Day were eventually resolved through sheer
relendess research. Thompson and Sherborne seemed to
believe Mann's story immediately, but Sandra Roberts re-
mained skeptical. When the facts had been assembled,
Alonzo Mann was subjected to three tests to determine the
truthflilness of his account. Seigenthaler first met Mann at
the cross-examination conducted by the newspaper's re-
search team, the deputy managing editor, and Bill WiUis,
the Tennessean^s lawyer. When Mann referred to Conley, he
called him "Jini" or the "black man." He seemed to have
been genuinely afraid of Conley, but according to Seigen-
thaler, Mann did not brand Conley the murderer out of any

150 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

special animus for blacks. AUmzo Mann was white.^ It was
difficult not to believe him, Seigenthaler said, although the
publisher tried to stay distant and objective. Bill Willis
concluded that Mann was a credible witness after the cross-
examination. In addition to this, Mann underwent a psy-
chological stress evaluation and a polygraph test.^ "He
passed both analyses impressively."

From what Charles Wittenstein saw of him, Alonzo
Mann was a sincere, conscientious, decent Christian man
who took his Christian responsibility seriously. Mann felt
that he had to unburden himself before he met his Maker.
He suffered from a heart condition and had imdergone
surgery to implant a pacemaker. His story was a confession
in contemplation of death. Seigenthaler confirms that Mann
was deeply religious. He remembers Mann saying that he
wanted to get his story out so Jesus would understand him
better. On the fourth day of March 1982, Mann swore an
affidavit which said in part that "Leo Frank was convicted
by lies, heaped on lies." "Jim Conley, the chief witness
against Leo Frank, lied under oath. I know that. I am
certain that he lied. I am convinced that he, not Leo Frank,
killed Mary Phagan. I know as a matter of certainty that
Jim Conley — and he alone — disposed of her body." When
the Tennessean^s story ran on March 7, 1982^, in a special
section of the Sunday edition, the public response was
nothing short of phenomenal. The wire services picked up
the story and great interest in the case was generated in
Georgia. Overall, according to Seigenthaler, the response
was positive. The Jewish community was worried, but very
interested. A few letters with Klan overtone were sent to
the paper. In looking back on the case, Seigenthaler feels
that Frank v^s not well represented legally. His lawyers
were counting on the jury not to convict on the word of a
black man. There is absolutely no doubt in Seigenthaler's
mind that two of the jurors had made "lynch statements"
prior to the trial. They wanted Frank dead before any
witnesses were called.

The Pardon 151

In addition to supervising the research efforts at the
Tennessean^ Seigenthaler also encouraged the governor of
Georgia to assist in the pardon process as much as possible.
The publisher contaaed Bert Lance^, seeking his assistance
too.

Charles Wittenstein spent four years on the Frank case
serving as an advocate on behalf of Frank's innocence®.
Wittenstein's grandfather-in-law, Arthur Heyman, had
been a law partner of Solicitor General Hugh Dorsey.
Heyman (of Dorsey, Brewster, Howell and Heyman) was
called by the defense as a charaaer witness for Leo Frank
during the trial, but the move backfired, because Prosecutor
Dorsey knew that Heyman did not know Frank that well.
Dorsey was able to exploit the faa that Heyman was
testifying to the character of a person he saw only a few
times a year, such as during High Holy Days.

The ADL, the American Jewish Committee, and the
Adanta Jewish Federation submitted an application to the
Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles on January 4,
1983 requesting a full pardon for Leo Frank. Alonzo
Mann's affidavit was the primary document in the applica-
tion, which also included affidavits from Jim Conley with
numerous internal inconsistencies; statements from Annie
Maud Carter^, Conley's girlfriend (who said he had con-
fessed the murder to her several times); and John Slaton's
written commutation of Frank's sentence. Mann had made
statements asserting Conley's guilt on March 4, 1982, and
again on November 10, 1982 in Adanta. He was videotaped
when making his statement in Adanta and his words were
"recorded by a court reporter in the presence of represen-
tatives of the Parole Board." Dale M. Schwartz acted as lead
counsel in the pardon effort.

The ADL argued not that Leo Frank was denied a fair
trial, but that he was innocent based on the new evidence
provided by Alonzo Mann — ^the position also taken by the
Jewish community in Adanta.

The National Conference of Christians and Jews formally

152 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

supported the pardon, as did the Christian Council of
Metropolitan Atlanta, and the Black- Jewish Coalition wich
was chaired by the Reverend John Lewis. Support from
these groups took the form of communication to the Par-
don and Parole board and to local newspapers.

But there was opposition to the posthumous pardon.
About 200 robed Ku Klux Klan members marched in
Marietta on Saturday, September 3, 1983, where they heard
a speech by Dr. Edward R. Fields, a former chiropractor
who headed the New Order Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Fields is also editor of the Thunderbolt^ a publication of the
National States Rights Party based in Marietta. From time
to time the Thunderbolt (which has a national circulation of
about 15,000, mostly among right-wing extremists) runs a
story on the Frank case, quoting liberally from Tom Wat-
son's Jeffersonian.

The Klan's march that day ended at the grave of Mary
Phagan in Citizens' Cemetery, where they laid a large
wreath. Across town. Marietta's mayor and members of the
City Coimcil joined a counter-demonstration that attracted
about 300 people at the First Baptist Church. The town
council had granted the Klan a parade permit, but said it
did not agree with the views of the white supremacist
organization. In retrospect, Charles Wittenstein feels that
the Klan march probably helped the ADL's case.

Opposition to the pardon also came from James Phagan
and his daughter Mary. James Phagan's father was Joshua
Phagan, the brother of Little Mary Phagan who was mur-
dered in 1913. Mary Phagan, the great-niece of the murder
victim, still lives in Marietta. She was born in Washington
state when her father was a master sergeant in the United
States Air Force. James has since retired from the United
States Postal Service.

Mary Phagan was about thirteen-years-old before she
realized who the great-aunt was that she had been named
for. Today at thirty-three, Ms Phagan teaches blind and
visually handicapped children near Atlanta. She bears a
striking physical resemblance to her great-aunt. I've had to

The Pardon 153

live as two people, Ms Phagan says, people see me as the
Little Mary Phagan of long ago and as Mary Phagan of
today. Although she has no children, she said that she
probably would not name any daughter for her great-aunt.
She simply wants the case to be fprgotten and live a
"normal" Ufe.

James Phagan and Mary Phagan objected to a resolution
sent by the Georgia Senate in March 1982 to the Board of
Pardons and Paroles. It had requested an investigation "and,
if the evidence indicates that Leo Frank was not guilty, the
board should give serious consideration to granting a par-
don to Leo Frank posthumously." James Phagan "sent a
letter to the board answering each point of the resolution,
arguing that no new evidence has been submitted to war-
rant a pardon." Mann's affidavit, said Phagan, was not
evidence.

In an interview with The Atlanta Constitution James
Phagan emphasized that he did not support or believe in
the K.K.K. "Nearly ten years ago," he said, he "denied the
organization's request to use the Phagan name in a 'Re-
member Mary Phagan Day.' "

Throughout 1983, considerable public support for
Frank's pardon emerged. Atlanta newspapers editorialized
in favor of it and Governor Joe Frank Harris let it be known
he supported the efforts. The ADL went into the 1983
hearing that December fully expecting victory. But on
December 22, 1983, the five-member Georgia State Board
of Pardons and Paroles denied Leo M. Frank a posthumous
pardon. Alonzo Mann, then eighty-five, was in Atlanta's
state capital pressroom when the announcement by Silas
Moore, deputy director of central operations for the board,
came. The board's chairman Mobley Howell^^ wrote that
"for the Board to grant such a pardon, the innocence of the
subject must be shown conclusively. In the Board's opinion,
this has not been shown." Alonzo Mann cried when he
heard the decision.

In 1982 there were only two types of pardons granted by

154 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

the board: a pardon of forgiveness and a pardon of inno-
cence. Both types were designed for cases where judge,
prosecution, defense counsel, and witnesses were ail alive.
A pardon of forgiveness essentially meant that a person
was, indeed, guilty, but because of an upright life following
prison, the State grants forgiveness. A pardon of innocence
meant that innocence must be shown beyond any doubt
whatsoever.

The ADL did not want and would not accept a pardon
of forgiveness. That left only the pardon of innocence, but
this was impossible to obtain seventy years after the fact,
when all principals in the case were dead. In 1983, the ADL
had been doomed from the start, but did not know it.
Later, it argued that innocence beyond any doubt was
unknown as a standard in American law.

The parole board was flooded with mail denouncing its
finding. The Christian Council of Atlanta "joined Jewish
groups in condemning the board's action." But James Pha-
gan supported the board's decision: "I feel satisfied that
Justice prevailed," he said.

According to Dale Schwartz, the son of William M.
Smith was very helpfiil in the 1983 effort to secure pardon
for Frank. Walter Smith, still an attorney in Atlanta, said in
an interview with the Atlanta Journal and Constitution that
his father (who had been Conley's attorney) "felt a great
degree of guilt, because he had been deceived by Conley,
[and] that he had lent his efforts to convia an innocent
man." The elder Smith's efforts on Leo Frank's behalf had
put him in constant danger. According to his son, people
felt William Smith had "become a traitor to his client."^ ^

After the board's December 1983 decision, the ADL
dropped the case for awhile. Later Louis Kunian, a Jewish
businessman, contacted the board and "asked renewed
board consideration of the Frank case." By this time Dale
Schwartz was preoccupied with other matters, so Charles
Wittenstein presented the arguments before the board. ^^

In this second round of pardon proceedings, the ADL

1^

JIM CONLEY. A floorsweeper at the National Pencil Factory, James
Conley was the State's main witness against Leo Frank.
(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

ALONZO MANN AS A BOY. Alonzo Mann testified at Leo Frank's
trial. (Nancy Rhoda, Nashville Tennessean)

j

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THE 'TEXTEA" OF TimATLANTAJOUKMAL — August 25, 1913.
(Atlanta J oumfd ^Atlanta Constitution)

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aiV£N BY OlOWD WAITING ON STRE^

Judge Roan Thanlcs haymen for Services WBy-
Ing Foar Long. Hard Weelcs. and Tells Vtm*
ban He Hopes They W^l^Flnd Their Fonriite
Well— Courtroom Was Cleared by Order. «ff
Judge Before Joiy Was Brou^t In to G^e ItS'
V«niict~-Tra Soary tar Rank's Wife and
Hb Mother." &y8 Solicitor Dorsey. «

(tfiAidtui ci the &'qd fftftti. gntdotttt tit ConttO ttniTtnitiv fi"^1irfi
' • iMdcr asMc td» peepli, ktt btts

r 4 nfamta to « eUMk • ia97 of tdi pcm JPtd ilMtr'tao.
wttmm, irfcltli fer low wmla to ta*a «• mm <4 dto
It kgp] teilt ia-tlHr iit«t«r «( a** «t*U.

bttl b«cs ftamJ d Hw mnMdtr cerim «to tor
di9* N»«« tJMfa*! u> ite ftim«|lit ier «ad tpiMt te jMns cm,^

LEO FRANK CON-
VICTED.

(Atlanta Journal Sc Atlanta
Constitution)

A COURAGEOUS GOVERNOR. Governor John MarshaU Slaton

received pleas from all over the country to spare Frank's life. Slaton also

received political enticement and threats, both in an effort to have Frank

executed.

(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

THOMAS EDWARD WATSON. A powerful politician and lawyer of
Georgia, Tom Watson fanned the flames of hatred in hisjeffersonian and
Watson^s Magazine.
(Atlanta Journal 8c Atlanta Constitution)

8IIPBEM (X)IIBT OF THE IJIinXB]) STAX^

Na 775.— OoroazB Tbbv, 1914.

\. LeoaLFnnk^Appdlant,
"-■■. .; V ■'01. ■ '.ri* . jV
0. ^SThedtf Mangom, Sheriff <^ Folton
Coooly, Georgia.

HAHVAPJ) I AW WJHOOL imm
HAWISCKPTpStai

ApptA-^nm the Distriet
'.Court ot tha United
StAtes for Utb Horttaem
Distriet of Georgm.

9:^

* ' . Mr. Jttstiea Houob diiaeatiDg.

^ T fca oi^ q ontten befcro oa is vhetlier tlie petitiooA ^ on its

b^ fae a faSo5g> t8K the writ of habeas torva* shottld be denied, or

whetlier the Distriet Court ehoold have proceeded to try the faeiaL

The aliegations that appear td me material are tliese. The trial

— ' began on July 28, 1913, at Atlanta, and ^vas earned on in a ^^oort

packed with speetatora and surroonded by a crowd oatside. all

strongly hostile to the petitioner. On Sotordajr, Aogtist 23, thb

hostiUty was solBeieot to lead the jadge to eenfsr in the presence

of the JQi7 with the Chief of Police of Atlanta and the Colonel oE

the Fifth Georgia Rf^imeot atadoaed in that city, both of whoiA

/were hnown to the jnty. On the same day, the evideoee seemingly

C jayin g been dosed, ittjjk the pablie pressy^pprefaending danger.

united in a requert to the Court that the proeeedinffs should not

eontinne oa that evening. TherelMft the Court adjourned ontfl

Monday morning. On that morning when the Solicitor General

entered the ^onrt he was greeted with applause, stamping of feet

and cl^pmg of hands, and the judge before beginning his diarge

had a private conversation with the petittooer^ counsel in whtch^

expressed the iq>inlon that there would iMj^^anger of violence^l'

if there sh'ould he an acquittal or a disagreemehL^d that it would

be ssfi^r not only the petitioner but his counselto be absent from

Court when the verdiet wiui brought b. At the judge's request

the:^ agreed that the petitioner and they should be abseotT'^

the verdiet was rendered, and before more than one of The jury*

men had been polled there was such a roar of applause that the

\ polling could not go on until order was rcatoritdA . With these

(S

JUSTICE OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES' DISSENTING OPIN-
ION. Justice Holmes' handwritten comments as well as Justice Charles
Evans Hughes' notes have never before been published. Hughes wrote
that he was proud to be associated with Holmes in this opinion.
(Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Papers, Harvard Law School Library)

GOVERNOR SLATON
EXPLAINS THE COM-
MUTATION.

(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta
Constitution)

THE LYNCHING IN PREY'S GROVE.

(Georgia Department of Archives and History)

>, « f «:^^

\ ■ " .;.

■!■: --' -

>-' .- .■
^••'■'.>. :."

[";.' - " ■

*•

'■*. Bwl '^•^- . ' ^^^^^ )'r '•?->-':>'

'■'■'-.'^k'-.C.

'..^I^Sr^f '^^^^V^^^ " "IIIK^-'j

^^1

^.^,•T■'-J^->ic--'

(Atlanta Journal ^Atlanta Constitution)

CHARLES F. WITTENSTEIN. The Southern counsel for the Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Mr. Wittenstein was instrumental in
the pardon of Leo Frank.
(Robert Seitz Frey)

ALONZO MANN HOLDING PHOTO OF HIMSELF (Right)
AND HIS TWO BROTHERS (c. 1910).

Nashville Tennessean, Nancy Rhoda)

ALONZO MANN BY THE GRAVE OF MARY PHAGAN.

(Nancy Rhoda, Nashville Tennessean)

ALONZO MANN AFTER SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETING
A POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION.

(Nancy Rhoda, Nashville Tennessean)

13

«C

^ iT^ ^ f^ .S I

The Pardon 155

based its petition on the State's culpability in the Leo Frank
case. The State had violated its obligation, ADL claimed,
to protect its prisoner from the lynch mob and the State
had not prosecuted any member of the lynch mob. There-
fore the State foreclosed efforts to prove Leo Frank's inno-
cence. The lynch mob and the State's failures had aborted
the judicial process, the ADL argued. Implicit in this posi-
tion was the message, "repent your sins." The board should
do something to atone for the wrongs committed by the
State. The ADL pointed out that the board was not limited
by the Georgia Constitution to only two forms of pardon
and asked the board to come up with a remedy that met
the unique circumstances of a unique case.

The crucial evidence, said the Anti-Defamation League,
was what Charles Wittenstein called the "shit in the shaft"
argument. Jim Conle/s final testimony was that he had
helped Leo Frank take the Phagan girl's body down from
the second floor to the basement in the elevator. Yet a pile
of human feces that Conley admitted depositing in the
elevator shaft early Saturday was found to be intact the
following Sunday morning — after the murder. If Conley
and Frank had indeed used the elevator, the excrement
would have been flattened. The ADL used Allen L. Hen-
son's chapter on the Frank case from his book published in
1959, and also drew upon Pastor Luther Sticker's com-
ments about a poor black man not being fit to atone for
such an atrocious murder.

A senior from Harvard University, who was doing his
thesis on executive pardon as seen through the Frank case,
also became involved in the formal pardon process. Clark J.
Freshman ('86) acted as a liaison between the ADL and the
parole board, "a lubricant in the process," said Wittenstein.
"He confirmed for the us [the ADL] that, based on his
conversations with the board, there was a possibility posi-
tions could be bridged and he suggested some areas of
possible agreement." The board apparendy wanted to heal
old wounds.

156 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

Wittenstein never filed a second written motion before
the board; he delivered instead an oral argument, which the
board considered to be a motion.

On March 11, 1986, nearly seventy-three years after
being convicted for murder by the Superior Court of
Fulton County, Leo Max Frank was officially pardoned by
the State of Georgia. The ADUs first case was closed. But
Alonzo Mann, whose testimony cleared Frank, had died in
1985^^ at the age of eighty-seven, never learning of the
pardon of the man he knew was innocent.

The official pardon said: 'The lynching aborted the legal
process, thus foreclosing fiirther efforts to prove Frank's
innocence. It resulted from the State of Georgia's failure to
protect Frank. Compounding the injustice, the State then
failed to prosecute any of the lynchers." The pardon also
alluded to the atmosphere surrounding the trial.

The ADL did not receive a significant amount of hate
mail in response to its role in the pardon process and
Wittenstein said he was grateful the New York office of the
ADL had allowed the Atlanta office to "quarterback" the
pardon effort.^*

Mary Phagan said in June 1987 she was angry when the
pardon was first made official. She felt she and her father
had not been notified far enough in advance of the final
announcement. Her own anger has subsided since then, she
says, but some members of her family are still very bitter.
Mary is also very much against the NBC mini-series; she
simply does not want the affair to receive any more public-
ity. When asked who she believed was guilty of her great-
aunt's murder, Mary was very short in her reply. The
evidence shows that Leo M. Frank was guilty, she says. In
the interview conducted in June, Ms Phagan said: a man
once told me the names of all the lynch mob members.
None are alive today, although members of their families
are. She insists that no member of the Phagan family was in
the Knights of Mary Phagan. Both she and Charles Witten-
stein said that several lawyers are in the process of putting

The Pardon 157

together a book on the Frank case and Mary hinted that
two women are also writing a book.

The great grandson of Thomas Edward Watson chal-
lenged the new information supplied by Alonzo Mann. In
his "Notes on the Case of Leo Max Frank and Its After-
math," Tom Watson Brown said that Mann's affidavit lacks
credibility. Mann's recitation of the scene in the factory that
Saturday in 1913, said Brown, varies very little from the
prosecution's assertion that Frank asked Jim Conley to carry
Mary Phagan's body. Brown also concluded that "there was
no mob influence on the trial or the jury."

So the controversy continues and will probably live on
forever, along with the memories.

Endnotes

1. Alonzo McClendon Mann was bom near Memphis, Tennessee on
August 8, 1898. His father, also Alonzo Mann, was bom in Gemiany.
His mother, the fomfier Hattie McClendon, was thirty years younger
than his father. When Alonzo was only a small boy, his family moved to
Atlanta where he spent most of his life. During the 1950s, he operated a
restaurant there.

2. Bom in 1927 in Nashville, Tennessee, John Lawrence Seigenthaler
grew up Roman Catholic. As a child he remembers hearing 'The Ballad
of Mary Phagan." If you were bom and raised in the South when I was,
Seigenthaler says, you come to realize that you've been raised in a
segregated society. Awareness of anti-Semitic attitudes soon follows. He
joined The Nashville Tennessean as a staff correspondent in 1949, and over
the years was assigned to investigate the periodic resurgences of the Ku
Klux Klan. The Klan had originated in Tennessee near Pulaski in 1866.
Seigenthaler became familiar with the Frank case through Harry Gol-
den's^ Little Girl is Dead. Leo Frank, Seigenthaler says, was an "Ameri-
can Dreyfus."

3. Seigenthaler says that initially, the Tennessean" s requests for infor-
mation and material from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati were met
with hostility. The college was concered with newspaper sensationalism
and anti-Semitic backlash.

4. In a March 14, 1982, Washin^fton Post article about the Frank case,
Haynes Johnson identified Alonzo Mann as a black man. This mistaken
notion was picked up by other sources. There is a discrepancy in the
Frank literature about Mann's race.

158 THE SILENT AND THE DAMNED

5. Jeffrey S. Ball of the Ball Investigative Agency conduaed die voice
stress and polygraph tests. He affirmed Alonzo Mann's truthfulness. The
psychological stress evaluation measures voice stress, whereas the poly-
graph measures respiratory rate, pulse rate, blood pressure, and skin
reaction.

6. About a week before the story ran in the Ttnmssean, Wayne
Williams was convicted for the deaths of two young Atianta blacks and
suspected of being the mass murderer who terrorized Atianta for months.
His trial has been compared in terms of local public interest to the Frank
case.

7. Thomas Bertram Lance is a comentator with station WXIA-TV
in Atianta. He is also a banker and former Director of the Office of
Management and Budget in Washington.

8. Wittenstein was also assisted by Stuart Lewengrub in the area of
Jewish community relations.

9. In a affidavit in the possession of the ADL in Atianta, Annie
Maud Carter gave this account of a conversation with Jim Conley:
". . . so during Christmas week I was talking with him in his cell and he
said he would tell me the whole truth about it. I asked him why he
waited so long. He said 'If I tell you will you marry me' and I told him
yes. He then told me that he really did the murder of Mary Phagan, but
that it was so plainly shown on Mr. Frank that he let it go that way."

10. The other board members were Mamie Reese, James Morris,
Michael Wing, and Wayne Snow Jr.

11. In 191 7, Mr. Smith left his law practice in Atianta to become a
carpenter in a shipyard in Charleston, South Carolina. Later he moved
to Brooklyn, taking a job there as a security guard at another shipyard.
Eventually he resumed his legal career, passing the New ^rk bar exam
and joining a Wall Street law firm. Following his retirement, William
Smith settied in Dalilonega, Georgia. He died in 1949.

12. The involvement of the American Jewish Committee was also less
at this stage. During this time, the charimanship of the Board had passed
from Mobley Howell to Wayne Snow Jr. as part of a regular progression
of leadership.

13. Mann passed away on March 18, 1985.

14. New York supported the Atianta Office of ADL in whatever it
decided to do, though certain decisions required justification to the main
office.

Appendixl

CHRONOLOGY

Mid-1840s:
1862:
1864:
1880s:

April 17, 1884:

1894:

June 1, 1900:

First Jews come to Marthasville (later
named Atlanta).

Attempt made to expel Jews from
Thomasville, Georgia.

General William Sherman's Union
troops bum Atlanta to the ground.

Many Russian Jews immigrate to At-
lanta. Until this time, most Jews in the
city were of German origin. The Ger-
man Jews had attempted to adopt the
customs of the general public, whereas
the Russian Jews do not.

Leo Max Frank born to Rudolph and
Rae Frank in Cuero, Texas. The Frank
family moves to Brooklyn, New York,
within a few months.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish offi-
cer, arrested on charges of treason in
France.

Mary Phagan bom to John and Frances
Phagan in Marietta, Georgia.

159

160
1901:

Spring 1906:

September 1906:
December 1907:

August 1908:

October 1910:

July 21, 1911:

1913:
AprU26, 1913:

April 27, 1913:
April 29, 1913:
May 2, 1913:
May 23, 1913:

APPENDIX 1

Tom Watson defends a Jew accused of
murder in Georgia.

Leo Frank graduates with a degree in
mechanical engineering from Cornell
University.

Major racial riot in Atlanta; ten blacks
and two whites killed.
Frank begins a nine-month apprentice-
ship in Europe under Eberhard Faber,
world-renowned pencil manufacturer.
Leo Frank moves to Atlanta to learn
and supervise National Pencil Com-
pany.

Leo Frank marries Lucille Selig of At-
lanta. The couple resides with Lucille's
parents.

Menahem Mendel Beilis arrested in
Kiev, Russia, on charges of ritual mur-
der.

The Atlanta Jewish community be-
comes the largest in the South.
Confederate Memorial Day in the
South. Mary Phagan collects her pay
at the National Pencil Factory where
she is employed.

Mary Phagan^s body discovered in the
basement of the National Pencil Fac-
tory by nightwatchman Newt Lee.
Mary Phagan is buried at Marietta in
Cobb County, Georgia. Leo Frank ar-
rested as a material witness.
Two suspects in the case, J. M. Gantt
and Arthur Mullinax, released from
police custody.

Leo Frank formally indicted for the
murder of Mary Phagan.

Chronolo£iy

161

July 28, 1913:
August 25, 1913:

August 26, 1913:
August 1913:

October 1913:
October 31,
1913:

November 1913:

February 1914:

Summer 1914:
December 1914:

March 1915:

April 19, 1915:

June 1915:

June 20-21,
1915:

Trial of Leo Frank begins at old city
hall building in Adanta.
Jury of twelve white men returns a
verdict of "guilty." Frank and his at-
torneys not present when the verdict is
read.

Frank sentenced to die October 10,
1913, by trial judge.
Newt Lee, the nightwatchman who
found Mary Phagan's body, released
from prison.
Anti-Defamation League chartered.

Judge Leonard Roan denies motion
for new trial for Leo Frank.
American Jewish Committee first con-
siders the Frank case.
Jim Conley sentenced to one-year im-
prisonment as an accessory after the
fact in the Phagan murder.
Hostilities in Europe intensify.
Writ of habeas corpus petition denied
in U.S. District Court in Georgia.
Judge Leonard S. Roan, trial judge for
Leo Frank, dies in New York.
United States Supreme Court rejects
Frank's last appeal.

Georgia Prison Commission rejects ap-
peal for clemency.

Governor John M. Slaton of Georgia
commutes Frank's sentence to life im-
prisonment. Frank transferred from
Fulton County prison to Milledgeville
Penitentiary for his own safety.

162

June 1915:

Summer 1915:
July 1915:
August 16, 1915:

August 17, 1915:

August-
September 1915:

Autumji 1915:

1917:
1920:
March 1982:

January 1983:

December 1983
March 18, 1985
March 11, 1986

APPENDIX 1

Nathaniel E. Harris becomes governor
of Georgia, replacing John Slaton.
Thomas E. Watson's Jeffersonian maga-
zine vehemently urges that Frank not
be allowed to escape justice.
Fellow convict J. William Green slashes
Frank's neck at Milledgeville prison
farm.

Leo Frank abducted from prison farm
by a mob calling itself the Knights of
Mary Phagan.

Frank hanged in a tree in Frey's woods
outside Marietta, Georgia.

Ghristian magazines respond to the
lynching.

Ku Klux Klan revitalized as an organi-
zation in a ceremony outside of At-
lanta. The Knights of Mary Phagan
formed the core of this group.
Hugh M. Dorsey, prosecutor in Frank
case, becomes governor of Georgia.
Tom Watson becomes a U.S. Senator
from Georgia.

Alonzo Mann, former office boy at the
National Pencil Factory, swears he saw
Jim Conley carrying Mary Phagan's
body and that Jim Conley was the real
murderer.

Anti-Defamation League submits ap-
plication for Leo Frank's pardon to the
Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Rirole Board denies application.
Alonzo Mann dies.

Georgia State Board of Pardons and
Paroles officially pardons Leo Frank.

Appendkc2

JUSTICE HOLMES'
DISSENT

(Frank v. Man£fum 237 U.S. 309)

Source: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Plapers
Harvard Law School Library

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

No. 775— OCTOBER TERM, 1914.

Leo M. Frank, Appellant, Appeal from the Distria

vs. Court of the United

C. Wheeler Mangum, Sheriff of States for the Northern

Fulton County, Georgia. District of Georgia.

[April 19, 1915.]
Mr. Justice HOLMES dissenting.

Mr. Justice Hughes and I are of opinion that the judg-
ment should be reversed. The only question before us
is whether the petition shows on its face that the writ of
habeas corpiis should be denied, or whether the District
Court should have proceeded to try the faas. The allega-
tions that appear to us material are these. The trial began
on July 28, 1913, at Atlanta, and was carried on in a court
packed with spectators and surroimded by a crowd outside,
all strongly hostile to the petitioner. On Saturday, August

163

164 APPENDIX 2

23, this hostility was sufficient to lead the judge to confer
in the presence of the jury with the Chief of Police of
Atlanta and the Colonel of the Fifth Georgia Regiment
stationed in that city, both of whom were known to the
jury. On the same day, the evidence seemingly having been
closed, the public press, apprehending danger, united in a
request to the Court that the proceedings should not
continue on that evening. Thereupon the Court adjourned
until Monday morning. On that morning when the Solici-
tor General entered the court he was greeted with applause,
stamping of feet and clapping of hands, and the judge
before beginning his charge had a private conversation with
the petitioner's counsel in which he expressed the opinion
that there would be 'probable danger of violence' if there
should be an acquittal or a disagreement, and that it would
be safer for not only the petitioner but his counsel to be
absent from Court when the verdict was brought in. At the
judge's request they agreed that the petitioner and they
should be absent, and they kept their word. When the
verdict was rendered, and before more than one of the
jurymen had been polled there was such a roar of applause
that the polling could not go on until order was restored.
The noise outside was such that it was difficult for the Judge
to hear the answers of the jurors although he was only ten
feet from them. With these specifications of fact, the peti-
tioner alleges that the trial was dominated by a hostile mob
and was nothing but an empty form.

We lay on one side the question whether the petitioner
could or did waive his right to be present at the polling of
the jury. That question was apparent in the form of the trial
and was raised by the application for a writ of error; and
although after the application to the fiill Court we thought
that the writ ought to be granted, we never have been
impressed by the argument that the presence of the prisoner
was required by the Constitution of the United States. But
habeas corpus cuts through all forms and goes to the very
tissue of the structure. It comes in from the outside, not in

Justice Holmes^ Dissent 165

subordination to the proceedings, and although every form
may have been preserved opens the inquiry whether they
have been more than an empty shell.

The argument for the appellee in substance is that the
trial was in a court of competent jurisdiction, that it retains
jurisdiction although, in fact, it may be dominated by a
mob, and that the rulings of the State Court as to the fact
of such domination cannot be reviewed. But the argument
seems to us inconclusive. Whatever disagreement there may
be as to the scope of the phrase 'due process of law', there
can be no doubt that it embraces the fundamental concep-
tion of a fair trial, with opportunity to be heard. Mob law
does not become due process of law by securing the assent
of a terrorized jury. We are not speaking of mere disorder,
or mere irregularities in procedure, but of a case where the
processes of justice are actually subverted. In such a case,
the Federal Court has jurisdiction to issue the writ. The fact
that the State Court still has its general jurisdiction and is
otherwise a competent court does not make it impossible
to find that a jury has been subjected to intimidation in a
particular case. The loss of jurisdiction is not general but
particular, and proceeds from the control of a hostile influ-
ence.

When such a case is presented it can not be said, in our
view, that the State Court decision makes the matter res
judicata. The State acts when by its agency it finds the
prisoner guilty and condemns him. We have held in a civil
case that it is no defense to the assertion of the Federal
right in the Federal Court that the State has corrective
procedure of its own — ^that still less does such procedure
draw to itself the final determination of the Federal ques-
tion. Simon v. Southern Ry, Co,, 236 U.S. 115, 122, 123.
We see no reason for a less liberal rule in a matter of life
and death. When the decision of the question of fact is so
interwoven with the decision of the question of constitu-
tional right that the one necessarily involves the other, the
Federal Court must examine the facts. Kansas City Southern

166 APPENDIX 2

Ry. Co. V. C. H. Albers Commission Co., 223 U.S. 573, 591.
Norfolk & Western Ry, Co. v. Conley, March 8, 1915. Other-
wise, the right will be a barren one. It is signijScant that the
argument for the State does not go so far as to say that in
no case would it be permissible on application for habeas
corpus to override the findings of fact by the state courts. It
would indeed be a most serious thing if this Court were so
bold, for we could not but regard it as a removal of what is
perhaps the most important guaranty of the Federal Con-
stitution. If, however, the argument stops short of this, the
whole structure built upon the State procedure and deci-
sions fall to the ground.

To put an extreme case and show what we mean, if the
trial and the later hearing before the Supreme Court had
taken place in the presence of an armed force known to be
ready to shoot if the result was not the one desired, we do
not suppose that this Court would allow itself to be silenced
by the suggestion that the record showed no flaw. To go
one step further, suppose that the trial had taken place
under such intimidation and that the Supreme Court of the
State on writ of error had discovered no error in the record,
we still imagine that this Court would find a sufficient one
outside of the record, and that it would not be disturbed in
its conclusion by anything that the Supreme Court of the
State might have said. We therefore lay the suggestion that
the Supreme Court of the State has disposed of the present
question of the appellants right to be present. If the
petition discloses facts that amount to a loss of jurisdiction
in the trial court, jurisdiction could not be restored by any
decision above. And notwithstanding the principle of com-
ity and convenience, (for in our opinion it is nothing more.
United States v. Sin£i Tuck, 194 U.S. 161, 168,) that calls for
a resort to the local appellate tribunal before coming to the
Courts of the United States for a writ of habeas corpusy
when, as here, that resort has been had in vain, the power
to secure fundamental rights that had existed at every stage
becomes a duty and must be put forth.

Justice Holmes^ Dissent 167

The single question in our minds is whether a petition
alleging that the trial took place in the midst of a mob
savagely and manifestly intent on a single result, is shown
on its face unwarranted, by the specifications, which may
be presumed to set forth the strongest indications of the
fact at the petitioner's command. This is not a matter for
polite presumptions; we must look facts in the face. Any
judge who has sat with juries knows that in spite of forms
they are extremely likely to be impregnated by the environ-
ing atmosphere. And when we find the judgment of the
expert on the spot, of the judge whose business it was to
preserve not only form but substance, to have been that if
one juryman yielded to the reasonable doubt that he himself
later expressed in court as the result of most anxious
deliberation, neither prisoner nor counsel would be safe
from the rage of the crowd, we think the presumption
overwhelming that the jury responded to the passions of
the mob. Of course we are speaking only of the case made
by the petition, and whether it ought to be heard. Upon
allegations of this gravity in our opinion it ought to be
heard, whatever the decision of the State Court may have
been, and it did not need to set forth contradictory evi-
dence, or matter of rebuttal, or to explain why the motions
for a new trial and to set aside the verdict were overruled
by the State Court. There is no reason to fear an impair-
ment of the authority of the State to punish the guilty. We
do not think it impracticable in any part of this country to
have trials free from outside control. But to maintain this
immunity it may be necessary that the supremacy of the law
and of the Federal Constitution should be vindicated in a
case like this. It may be that on a hearing a different
complexion would be given to the judge's alleged request
and expression of fear. But supposing the alleged facts to
be true, we are of opinion that if they were before the
Supreme Court it sanctioned a situation upon which the
Courts of the United States should act, and if for any reason
they were not before the Supreme Court, it is our duty to

168 APPENDIX 2

act upon them now and to declare lynch law as little valid
when practiced by a regularly drawn jury as when adminis-
tered by one elected by a mob intent on death.

True copy.

Test: Clerk Supreme Courts U.S.

AppendixS

THE CHRISTIAN
RESPONSE

In addition to marking the time of increased Jewish immi-
gration into the South, the American Civil War stands as
a monumental dividing ridge in American religious
experienced From the beginning of colonial life in this
country, religion served as a bond of unity, which helped
overcome the effects of competing local interests and re-
gional concerns. The Great Awakening of the 1740s, asso-
ciated with theologians Jonathan Edwards and Gilbert Ten-
nent, is a significant example of the cohesive value of
religion in social terms.

The issue of slavery, however, produced such widespread
social and theological dislocations that many churches were
not able to stay united on the issue. As a result, many
northern and southern Protestant denominations split. And
relatively few southern denominations were able, or even
found it desirable, to reunite with their northern counter-
parts after General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General
Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox.

The three largest religious denominations in the South
in the period after the war were the Methodists, Baptists,
and Presbyterians. The Methodist Episcopal Church,

169

170 APPENDIX 3

South, and the Southern Baptist Conference had emerged
following the split in their respective national churches in
1845. The Presbyterians, as of 1870, were also split be-
tween North and South. The Protestant Episcopal Church
stands as the one denomination which successfully merged
northern and southern churches after 1865. Reverend Dr.
C. B. Wilmer, one of the Christian leaders of Adanta who
spoke out on the Frank case, was the pastor of a Protestant
Episcopal church.

The growing shift in ethnicity in the population of the
United States after the Civil War was reflected in the
proportionate strength of various religious groups. By
1900, at a national level, the Methodists and the Baptists
were the largest American denominations, followed by the
Lutherans and Presbyterians. The Roman Catholic Church
grew dramatically after 1865. And with the great influx of
Eastern European Jewish immigrants from 1880 to 1914,
the American Jewish community also grew substantially. In
addition. Buddhism became established on the West Coast
with the arrival of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Amer-
ica was becoming quite diverse religiously.

In Adanta, Christian religious influence in the years
immediately preceding the Frank case was devoted primarily
to promoting orderliness, according to Harvey Knupp
Newman. Revivalism succeeded in bringing in new mem-
bers for the churches, but this increase in membership was
accomplished at the expense of the orderliness they had
been seeking for Adanta.

*
**

From the last week of April 1913 until the first weeks of
September 1915, the Adanta newspapers were filled with
articles about the Phagan murder. Leo Frank's trial and
Governor John Slaton's dramatic decision to commute
Frank's sentence on the day before Frank was to die and
Slaton was to leave office grabbed the headlines of Fulton

The Christian Response 171

County. The lynching in Marietta was a national story. In
fact, the Frank case was given widespread national coverage
beginning in the spring of 1914. From 1913 to 1915, more
than a hundred articles appeared in the New Tork Times
alone. Popular magazines such as Everybodfs^ Collier^s^ and
Outlook also published pieces about the events in Atlanta.

With the exception of two small articles in TheMennonite
(Berne, Indiana), the Christian press across the nation was
essentially silent about the Frank case until after the lynch-
ing in August 1915. There is no record of ongoing Chris-
tian commentary on the trial, the judicial appeal process,
nor the widespread petitioning for commutation of Frank's
sentence, although there were a large number of general
audience and academic Christian magazines and journals in
existence at the time. When Christian views on the case did
appear, they were limited in number; a survey of Christian
magazines of the time revealed less than seventy-five articles
on the entire Frank issue. Most Christian magazines offered
no comment whatsoever.

The Christian Century^ probably the most influential
Protestant weekly journal of that era, provided no news
coverage or discussion of the case. The only space in the
Christian Century given to the issue was a poem by Mary
White Ovington, "Mary Phagan Speaks." It was reprinted
from the New Republic^ a liberal popular magazine.

It is possible that much of the Christian response to the
case was contained in sermons and homilies. However, most
pastors' and priests' messages were never written down and
collected, much less published. No well-known American
theologians or clergymen commented on any aspect of
Frank's fate in their recorded works.

Academic Christian journals of the early twentieth cen-
tury did not, in general, deal with issues of the day. There
was some discussion of the First World War and Woodrow
Wilson's policies, but attention was more often focused on
the distant past — Scriptural interpretation and archaeologi-
cal discoveries in the Holy Land.

172 APPENDIX 3

Many Christian denominational magazines of die time
were limited to ecclesiastical or administrative affairs. The
appointment of pastors, church conferences, and mission-
ary activities were the usual subjects. Other magazines
focused on devotional and liturgical concerns. Often, a
denominational magazine served as a weekly guide to per-
sonal and family worship, providing Biblical references and
short lessons.

Moreover, Christian magazines were a major source of
news, particularly information about far off lands where
missionaries were serving the church. Usually they carried a
section in the front of their magazine devoted to "News of
the Week," and when there was mention of the Frank case,
it would often appear here.

In examining the responses of the Christian magazines it
was necessary to consider whether the issue of Leo Frank's
Jewishness was raised. Were specific statements made which
denigrated Frank's character? Was the possibility of his
being innocent considered? Was there a call for prosecution
ofthe lynch mob?

Five articles referred to Frank's Jewishness or to anti-
Jewish public sentiment. The United Presbyterian used
"young Hebrew" in lieu of Frank's name. And this publica-
tion, along with The Epworth Herald and Northern Christian
Advocate drew a direct correlation between Frank's being
Jewish and the emotional public reaction to the Phagan
murder. The United Presbyterian said that "there enters into
the emotions which have been inflamed by local discussion
not only sympathy with the girl but hatred of the man
because he was a Jew." Similarly, The Epworth Herald^ a
magazine published by The Methodist Book Concern,
noted that "because of his Jewish extraction, the mob spirit,
which is easily aroused in Georgia, was swung against him,
and his trial and conviction will remain a lasting disgrace to
that state." "Much race feeUng developed during the trial as
Frank was a Jew," declared the Northern Christian Advocate.

The Wesleyan Christian Advocate^ the principal news me-

The Christian Response 1 73

dium of the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, categorically rejected any link
between Frank's Jewishness and the outcome of his trial.

It was a most serious blunder from any and every standpoint
for the counsel of Leo Frank in the trial to inject into the case
the idea of racial prejudice. That Frank was a Jew had no more
to do with the verdict of sworn jurors than it had to do with
the tides of the sea. The Jews of this state have had every
advantage accorded anybody else within the limits of the state.
Our courts have been open to them for redress of their wrongs
and the securement of their rights. They have been prominent
in the industrial and commercial life of the commonwealth,
and when they have chosen, they have had access to the best
social circles of the state. They have come among us and a
number of them have amassed fortunes. Their righfi? of person
and property have been respected. That one of that race should
have been charged with a crime and haled before the courts to
establish his innocence or meet a verdict of guilt was no more
than has been done time and again to Gentiles within the state.
Most unfortunate is that the race sentiment has ever been
brought into the case. And most regrettable will it be if this
racial prejudice is to be fanned into flame now that Frank has
gone to the bar of God.

Finally, the Northern Christian Advocate offered a brief
report intended to demonstrate the influence of Jesus on
the Jew, Leo Frank. When the mother of Frank was asked
whether she could ever forgive her son's murderers, she is
said to have replied that perhaps someday "I will be able to
quote Leo's favorite passage from the Scriptures. It was:
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." To
this quotation, the editor of the Northern Christian Advocate
added that "if this be as reported, it beautifully illustrates
the influence of Jesus upon his brethren after the flesh."
The Biblical passage had been taken from Luke 23:26 in
the New Testament. "Brethren after the flesh" would refer
to Jews. Christians would most likely have been referred to
as Jesus' brethren after the spirit.

174 APPENDIX 3

As for specific support of the jury's decision in the
Christian press, The Methodist^ a journal of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, issued the most negative comment
against Frank. For this magazine, a frenzied mob was "a
worse menace to the state than such men as Frank, bad as
their kind are." Most Christian journals, however, referred
to Frank in neutral terms, although The Herald and Presby-
ter^ a Presbyterian weekly journal, used "convicted mur-
derer'' to describe Frank. No magazine profiled Leo Frank,
the man, beyond brief mention of his position at the
National Pencil Factory and several other pallid facts.

The Refbrmed Church Messen^ier and Lutheran Church
Work raised the possibility of Frank's innocence: "The peo-
ple of the State [of Georgia] look on the lynching as
criminal in the highest degree, especially in the face of the
fact that there was and is much doubt as to Frank's guilt."
In a brief outline of the main events in the case. The
Universalist Leader mentioned that "there was a reasonable
doubt of his innocence, and on this doubt the Governor
commuted his sentence." The Northern Christian Advocate
(August 19, 1915) also expressed doubt as to Frank's guilt
for the murder.

'The question whether the man was guilty at all or not
was too large for honest men to say that the crime had been
fastened on him beyond reasonable doubt," The Continent
asserted. And The Epworth Herald wrote: "The doubt of
Frank's guilt was so strong in the minds of unprejudiced
persons who reviewed the case that a national effort was
made to save the condemned man."

Three different Christian magazines supported prosecut-
ing the lynch mob. A national Baptist paper editorialized
that "the mob must be individualized, and its individual
members must be arrested and tried as murderers." Both
The Refbrmed Church Messen^fer and Lutheran Church Work
expressed hope that "the good name of Georgia and of the
American public as a whole will be vindicated by a vigorous

The Christian Response 1 75

prosecution of the case until all that can be done will be
done."

Not one of the Christian periodicals that devoted atten-
tion to the Frank case contained any overtly anti- Jewish
commentary. And in summary, we have to conclude that
the general tone of the articles appearing in Christian
periodicals was neutral or favorable to Frank and sympa-
thetic regarding to his fate. On the other hand, no Christian
journal devoted ongoing coverage to the case from 1913
through 1915 — although the Wesleyan Christian Advocate
ran ten articles in 1915 relating to the case and its repercus-
sions for the State of Georgia.

The overwhelming majority of Christian magazines of
the time (which responded at all to the tragedy) found the
Frank case as an excellent peg for discussing law and order,
lynching, mob law, states' rights, sectional tensions and
issues, the State of Georgia, and the South in general. The
mob members involved in the lynching were described by
the influential Roman Catholic magazine, America^ as
"armed cowards [who] flouted the law, trampled upon
justice, [and] destroyed as far as they could the very foun-
dations of civilization." In addition to denouncing the
actions of the moh^ America alleged that Thomas E. Watson
was the "leader" of that group. It made it clear that Watson
was not personally present at the hanging, but implied that
because of the calumny disseminated in Watson's "abomi-
nable publication," The Jeffersonian^ during the summer of
1915, he was the ideological force behind the lynch mob.

America also attacked Tom Watson for his anti-Catholi-
cism. It called The Jeffersoniaffs editor a "Georgia Pole-cat"
and indiaed him for stirring up "blind and unreasoning
hatred of everything Catholic" and for launching a "cam-
paign of hatred against the Catholic Church, decency and
against civilization." The suffering of American Catholic
men, women, and children at the hands of non-Catholic
mobs, and the destruction of convents and churches were
also noted. The magazine also said that Watson issued

176 APPENDIX 3

"threats of violence against any who might wish to show
the innocence of this condemned and hated Jew," and
discussed the American public's concern about Jew-baiting
in Russia, suggesting that the United States had similar
internal problems that warranted national attention.

Most of the Christian magazines that responded to the
Frank case were published outside of Georgia — ^in New
York, Chicago, Boston, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia,
Harrisburg, and on the Pacific Coast. And Georgia was
frequently indicted in their pages for its lawlessness, lack of
justice, and the defense of the lynch mob by some promi-
nent Georgian citizens. An editorial note in The Presbyterian
Banner (and seconded by The Christian Register) asserted
that "law and life are not regarded in Georgia as they are in
Northern States," adding that for all the talk in Georgia of
"chivalry" and 'Svoman's honor," it does not protect its
women and children with industrial legislation as most
other states do.

The Banner's editor considered the state of mind that
encouraged lynchings as an "inheritance of slavery, in which
a black man had no rights a white man was bovmd to
respect, and the same spirit infected the whole social and
political atmosphere and has poisoned the roots of justice
and of civilization. . . . Only a change of mind, wrought by
Christian education" would bring about a cure, the editor
concluded. Georgia was also charged with failing in its
responsibility for Frank's safekeeping at the penitentiary in
Milledgeville. The prominent standing of the members of
the lynch mob added to the gravity of the entire Frank
affair, the editorial argued. Members of the mob included
"solid businessmen and prominent church members;" crim-
inals and "baser elements of the community" were pur-
posely excluded.

In another Presbyterian Banner article on the Frank lynch-
ing the Atlanta Constitution was quoted as saying: "It is
Georgia law and justice that was hanged upon that Cobb
County tree." The article observed that despite rumors of

The Christian Response 1 77

an abduction attempt, the Milledgeville prison authorities
took no special precautions, although this was not true for
the early days of August 1915. But on the night Leo Frank
was taken from the prison farm, the guard had been relaxed.
The Banner also said large sums of money were being
collected in the North to discover and punish the members
of the lynch mob.

The State of Georgia was also criticized by The Universal'
ist Leader:

Georgia has made open confession that she can not, or will
not, which is worse, command obedience to her own laws. She
has disgraced not only herself but every state in the Union, and
shamed our human nature. This latest crime of this nature
startlingly illustrates how futile are laws which are not sus-
tained by a public sentiment. . . .

The Leader contended that state or county officials in
Georgia "apparendy all propose to remain in ignorance''
regarding the perpetrators of the crime. The "shadow of
shame'' shall be lifted from Georgia only when those people
who consent to lynching "come to realize that crime can
never cure crime."

Boston's Con£[re£[ationalist and Christian World said the
"murder of Frank has lowered the moral authority of the
United States all over the world." Despite the resentment
of many citizens of Georgia, in the editor's opinion the
lynching of Leo Frank should be open to national scrutiny.
An improvement in the laws of Georgia was obviously
needed.

The Con£ire£iationalist also raised the same issue raised by
The Banner: women and children. In Georgia at that time,
children from ages eight to thirteen could work in factories,
and the legal age of consent was ten. At the same time, the
Con£[re£[ationalist expressed hope that closer review of the
evidence in the Phagan murder case might definitively
resolve the question of Frank's guilt or innocence.

The lynching of Leo Frank was "but a culmination of

178 APPENDIX 3

open defiance of the law which has been tolerated in the
South," wrote the editor of \he Northern Christian Advocate^
which also said it was "one of the most law defying outrages
ever committed and heaps more shame upon the state that
has already been the scene of barbarous lynchings." It did
note, however, that this deed did not have the approval and
sanction of "the best South." Government officials were
urged by the editorial to do something about lawlessness in
the South.

An early September 1915 issue of The Epworth Herald
declared that talk coming out of Georgia about the dignity
of womanhood "has a strange sound" given that state's
notoriously low standards in child and woman labor laws.
However, the Herald did credit the newspapers of Adanta
with expressing outrage at Frank's lynching. And the mag-
azine reprinted the statements of Atlanta's Mayor Wood-
ward, who argued that the lynchers were "merely refusing
to let justice be cheated by the governor's action in com-
muting Frank's sentence. . . . Censure of the act of the mob
comes from every point save that in which the lynching
occurred," the Herald wrote.

Urging contriteness and penance. The Continent^ pub-
lished in New librk, suggested that

Georgia must perform many an honest deed of expiation and
many a bold and faithful act of justice before it can atone in its
record for the superlative shame which attaches to the lynching
of Leo M. Frank. . . . And Georgia can only confess with
penitence the double dye of disgrace upon it for having been
neither strong enough nor watchful enough to suppress the
outbreak of such barbarism among its people.

By being condenmed to hfe imprisonment by the judicial
system of the State of Georgia, Frank was already subjected
to much suffering. In the Continenfs view the lynching was
absolutely barbaric.

The editor of The Pacific^ voice of the Congregational
churches on the Pacific Coast, maintained that in the wake

The Christian Response 1 79

of Frank's lynching, "it begins to look as if the State of
Georgia would have to alter her seal." The obverse side of
the Seal of Georgia has the words 'Svisdom," "justice," and
"moderation" adorning the banner which is draped about
the columns.

Finally, The Reformed Church Messenger and Lutheran
Church Work^ from Pennsylvania, contended that "the good
name of Georgia will swing in the balance until it is seen
what will be done to punish the lawbreakers."

*

Two Christian magazines published outside Georgia ex-
tended support and sympathy to Georgia. The Christian
Advocate in Nashville wrote that

Governor Harris announces that no effort will be spared in the
attempt to bring the guilty to justice, and a thorough investi-
gation will be had to see whether any official failed in the
discharge of his swom duty. That this would be his attitude
and his course of action, none who know Governor Harris
have doubted. In this time of his State's humiliation and shame
he and other officials can do much to prove to the world that
the good citizenship of Georgia does not, in any measure,
condone lawlessness. Georgia is on trial before the world, and
those who believe in her and her people look with confidence
to the day of the State's vindication.

In addition, the Advocate endorsed an article in the
Atlanta Journal that referred to Georgia as a "law-abiding
State."

The Watchman-Examiner^ published in Massachusetts and
New York, issued the caveat: "Let not venomous things be
said about Georgia. Let the people everywhere sympathize
with the State authorities as they strive to bring the evil-
doers to justice, and thus to maintain the dignity of the
law."

It is significant that this national Baptist paper urged that

180 APPENDIX 3

the lynch mob be "individualized" instead of including the
lynch mob, the citizens of Cobb County, Georgians in
general, and all the authorities of that state under the
umbrella of lawlessness and anarchy.

Atlanta's Wesleyan Christian Advocate did not defend the
lynching of Leo Frank. But it did suggest that some people
outside the State of Georgia "have been too forward in their
interference with the affairs of this state and far too bitter
in their denunciation of our people as barbarians and our
courts as swayed by the clamor of mobs." In the face of
such external interference and meddling, "the people of
Georgia have shown surprising self control." The sover-
eignty of Georgia's laws and its ability to administer justice
according to duly enacted legislation were affirmed.

Another theme developed by the Wesleyan Christian Ad-
vocate was that "the lawless are everywhere and even the
most shocking crimes are committed in all sections of the
country." The Advocate resented the denigration of the
good people of Georgia by The Chicf^o Tribune^ the Outlook
in New York, and the Northwestern Christian Advocate in
Illinois. "Mobocracy cannot be tolerated" in Georgia, the
Advocate wrote, but capturing "men who lynch other men"
is a difficult task.

This Georgia Methodist magazine also discussed race
prejudice and sectional animosities:

The sensible people of this state condemn the horrible lynching
of this prisoner, and it does no good but great harm to send
out bitter denunciations that stir sectional and race hatred
among the people of this country. Great harm will come of
that, and the most harm will come to the people who foster
and scatter such things. . . .

And in another article, "A Matter to Be Seriously Pon-
dered." ^t Advocate issued this somber warning:

Since the lynching of Frank there has been an effort, whether
planned deliberately, or the result of intense and sudden pas-
sion, to keep alive racial animosity that can mean nothing but

The Christian Response 181

evil alike for the Jews and the Gentiles. That way lie troubles
not easily cured. Along that path is anarchy of the most awful
sort. To blow on the embers of that heat is to kindle an
unquenchable conflagration that will take in its consuming
flames all the institutions we hold dear and count as worth
while. That will not do. Those beyond the borders of this state
who have made the impression that there is here at the base of
this lynching of Leo Frank race prejudice are sowing the wind
and they will sooner or later reap the whirlwind. Nor is that
the way for the prosperity of those within the state for the
Gentiles.

The reference to reaping the whirlwind was taken from
Proverbs 11. The article would appear to contain a veiled
threat to the Jews of Georgia.

W. C. Lovett, editor oi}i[ic Advocate^ argued that no mob
kept Leo Frank from facing the jury at the time the verdict
was rendered. "Mob business in this trial has been decidedly
overdone," the editor concluded. Indeed, "if one is disposed
to make much of the "mob spirit" during the trial, it should
be remembered that the Supreme Court of this state and
the Supreme Court of the United States were not under the
remotest intimidation by a mob." This was true, but the
Supreme Court of Georgia and the United States Supreme
Court were not reviewing the facts and evidence of the case.
Appellate consideration was confined to procedural points
of the law.

Distinct from the majority of Christian magazines pub-
lished outside of Georgia, the Wesleyan Christian Advocate
strongly defended the juridical processes of the State of
Georgia and the right of that state to manage its own
affairs. But the journal did recognize a tendency within
Georgia which, if left unchecked, might result in "moboc-
racy."

*
**

After studying the nationwide Christian response to the
Frank case, the only conclusion that can be reached is that

182 APPENDIX 3

it was extremely meager.^ And quite possibly Christian
apathy and disinterest in the case could have contributed to
the fact that this "Jewish issue'' did not inspire widespread
or prolonged discussion within Christian circles.

The record of individual Christian responses to the Frank
case is quite diverse. Perhaps the most significant reaction,
as we have seen, came from Mary Phagan's Bible School
pastor. Dr. Luther O. Bricker. Before he died in 1942,
Bricker wrote in Shane Quarterly that although the old
Negro watchman. Newt Lee, would have been a poor
atonement for the death of litde Mary Phagan, Leo Frank
was a 'Svorthy victim to pay for the crime.''

But he also said: "I went to see Leo M. Frank in jail many
times thereafter. ... I saw in his eyes all the long story of
the sufferings of his race. He had no bitterness in his heart
against anyone."

Bricker claimed that he 'Svas the only minister in Atlanta
who dared to go into his pulpit and demand that Mr. Frank
be given a new trial. It nearly cost me my life. I was shot at
twice, my home was set on fire. . . ." Whether Pastor
Backer's life was threatened is not known, but his statement
that he was the only Adanta pastor to demand a new trial
for Frank is undermined by reports that appeared in the
New Ibrk Times^ Washinpfton Post^ Louisville Courier-Journal^
and Florida Times-Union. And in light of the national outcry
on Frank's behalf. Backer's contention that "perhaps I alone
am responsible for the act of Governor John M. Slaton's
commuting his sentence to life imprisonment" is also ques-
tionable. The Reverend C. O. Brookshire of the Baptist
Church in Lakemont, Georgia, had also written Governor
Slaton asking that Frank's sentence be commuted. So had
L. O. Miller, Treasurer of the Church of the United Breth-
ren in Christ in Dayton, Ohio.

Dr. Backer's assessment of his feelings at the time proved
more valuable than his account of what transpired at the
governor's mansion when a mob gathered there one June
night in 1915. His feeling that Newt Lee 'Svould be poor

The Christian Response 183

atonement for the life" of Little Mary Phagan was used
forty years later by Charles Wittenstein and the Atlanta
Office of the ADL.

Dr. Rembert G. Smith, pastor of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church in Marietta, Georgia, also "read a strong and
positive denunciation of the crime which had been commit-
ted" on the Sunday after Leo Frank had been lynched. But,
according to Atlanta's Wesleyan Christian Advocate^ because
of anti-Georgia sentiment. Dr. Smith's statement was de-
nied publication in New York by some of the big daily
newspapers. His congregation, the largest in Marietta, en-
dorsed their pastor's denunciation.

In the course of discussing the Frank case and the lynch-
ing problem in the South, Reverend H. H. Proctor, D.D.,
a black Congregationalist minister in Atlanta, found some
reason for positive comment.

But dark as this case is, rays of light are seen bursting over the
abyss. The very uniqueness of Atlanta vouchsafes a peculiar
moral resiliency. Atlanta arose from the burning by Sherman's
troops to face a new destiny. With the well-known Atlanta
spirit, the city came out of the riot of 1906 a better city, . . .

If this whole deplorable case shall result in the strengthening
of public sentiment against this iniquity [lynching], in the
enactment of a state law that will be effective as far as a state
law can be, and, above all, in making lynching a Federal crime,
our faith will be strengthened in the great truth that God
causes the wrath of men to praise him.

Reverend Proctor noted that Jim Conley, after having
served a year-long prison sentence for being an accomplice
in the murder of Mary Phagan, 'Svalked about in Adanta
and was not even threatened with violence."

Following a five-month visit to the South during 1915,
the Reverend William Lindsay returned to the First Congre-
gational Church in Milton, Massachusetts, and delivered a
sermon titled "Self- Expression." The lynching of Leo
Frank, said Reverend Lindsay, reminds us of "the dangers

184 APPENDIX 3

attending an outbreak of emotional egotism, and at the
same time of the priceless worth of mental balance, correct
thinking, and sound judgment." The Christian Re^fister re-
corded much of Lindsay's sermon, which concluded:
"Surely there must be . . . law-abiding citizens in Georgia
who resent and condemn the murder of Leo Frank, and
lynching in general."

Writing in America in 1915 Henry Woods of the Society
of Jesus did not excuse the crime against Leo Frank. How-
ever, Father Woods argued that the courts and Executive
Office of Georgia had been browbeaten by public pressure,
and Governor Slaton's commutation of Frank's sentence to
life imprisonment inspired the lynching, said the priest,
who called this an outrage of "all our processes of justice
. . . almost beyond expression."

Commenting on the widespread public reaction to the
Frank case. Father Woods observed:

From New librk to San Francisco the newspapers retried and
acquitted him. From San Francisco to New librk ministers
neglected the Gospel they are supposed to preach, to do the
same in their pulpits; ....

Such proceedings are a grievous injury to the courts of law.

The editors, the ministers, the female agitators, the petition-
ers, the personal visitors, making up no small part of the
people of the United States, unless they were moved by some
hidden power, were convinced that the Courts of the State of
Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States, were re-
solved on a judicial murder, that the Govemor of Georgia was
consenting to it, and that the faa was so clear, as to justify an
interference that otherwise would have to be judged as abso-
lutely lawless. No worse insult can be imagined.

Father Woods seems to be suggesting that if the judicial
decision to hang Frank on June 22, 1915, had not been
altered by executive decision, the lynching would never have
happened! And he appears to see the public outcry on
Frank's behalf as an act more morally reprehensible than
the lynching itself

The Christian Response 185

Father Wcxxls did not mention the pressure editor Tom
Watson applied on Governor Slaton, both in his magazines
where he agitated vehemently against sparing Frank's life
and by offering political rewards to Slaton if he denied
commutation. "Authority without which no body politic
can maintain itself is being brought into grave peril," Woods
concluded, not by the actions of lynch mobs but by the
actions of an outraged citizenry.

Reverend Alvan F. Sherrill, Dean of the Atlanta Theolog-
ical Seminary, wrote a letter to the New York magazine
Outlook^ an excerpt of which was published a month after
Frank was lynched.

At some risk of your misunderstanding me, I will add, the men
who hung Frank were not a 'mob' by any true sense of that
word — they were a sifted band of men, sober, intelligent, of
established good name and charaaer — good American citizens.
In all essentials of manhood and citizenship, they were your
equals or mine. They believed it was a very exceptional exigency
that demanded and justified the very exceptional act. Now, are
you sure that your judgment one thousand miles away is better
than theirs on the ground?

These words support the un-American doctrine of mob
law, the Outlook declared. Despite several attempts to locate
a reference to or history of the Atlanta Theological Semi-
nary, none were found.

The Sunday following the lynching at Marietta, Reverend
Alex Bealer of the Baptist Tabernacle in Valdosta, Georgia,
delivered a sermon based on Matthew 22:31. And Jesus
said, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." Pastor
Bealer declared:

Contempt for the laws led to the lynching of Jesus. The people
hated Him, and despising the laws that protected Him, they
ignored them and put Him to death as a criminal is lynched
today. The spirit that animated these men is alive today. It lives
in the hearts of the mobs of the country. . . .

186 APPENDIX 3

Recorded Christian responses to the Frank case seem to
support the theories of anti-Semitism which argue that
American attitudes towards the Jew contain both positive
and negative elements and the lack of any widespread
Christian reaction could be the result of the negative ele-
ments, as well as apathy. The fact that some Christians
supported Leo Frank and were disgusted over the anti-
Jewish sentiment in Adanta reflect the positive attitudes
towards Jews. But the Wesleyan Christian Advocate's sensitiv-
ity to allegations of anti- Jewish sentiment in Georgia sug-
gests that anti-Semitism was not generally acceptable by
American society as a whole at that time.

Throughout the two years of her husband's travails, Mrs.
Frank received letters from many concerned Christians.
"Knowing that you are Jewish," wrote one Seventh-Day
Adventist from South Dakota, "I wondered if either of you
have accepted Christ the Messiah as your Savior." Mrs.
Hawley went on to say that "I have lived in the South a
litde and know just a bit of the mob spirit, also have no
doubt that some of the jurors believe your husband inno-
cent, yet are afraid to say so."

While serving time at the Tower and the prison farm,
Frank received many letters from concerned Christians
around the country. "I know that the mob spirit was
responsible for your conviction," wrote Pastor J. C. Casaday
of Birmingham. "But I have a very dear friend who is a jew
by birth who is able to quiet the mob. His Name is JESUS
CHRIST. And there is None other name given by which
men can be saved." This Methodist minister hoped Mr.
Frank would "not resent a word of kindness from a Gen-
tile."

A woman from Nyack, New York, wrote that "if the
blood of bulls and goats . . . were effectual in the days of
Israel. How much more effectual would be the blood of the
living Christ. Wont you accept this Savior?" She had written
on behalf of the "Jewish Prayer Band." "We are sending you
some tracts and papers," she continued, "and trust you will

The Christian Response 187

read them, and let Gods word become real to you and in
them find Christ the Messiah."

"You cannot afford to not have me come and have a
conference with the Gov.," said Reverend Thomas Foster
in a letter dated June 10, 1914. Pastor Foster was an
ordained evangelist from Columbus, Ohio, with "over 20
years experience as a detective in the slums and high places."

The wife of the manager of the Scott Telephone Com-
pany greeted Governor Slaton's decision to commute
Frank's sentence with joy. "1 am truly thankful that you
were granted clemency and have thanked God many times
for it." "Now Mr. Frank," she continued, 'Svont you con-
sider giving your heart to Jesus?" Jesus' abiding presence
'Svould make Heaven on earth, even tho' back of prison
bars."

Endnotes

1. Sec Winthrop S. Hudson's Religim in America.

2. From 1916 to 1986, only two articles on the Frank case appeared
in Christian magazines. One was published in the Shane Quarterly in
1943, the other in the Christian Century in 1985.

Appendix 4

CHRISTIAN PERIODICAL
HISTORIES

America: A Catholic Review of the Week was published by the
America Press in New York. The president of the America
Press in 1915 was Richard H. Tierney. America^ started in
1909, was an influential weekly of intellectual substance.

The Christian Advocate was the general organ of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church, South, and was published in Nash-
ville. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, had become
an all-white religious body by 1870, though it had a black
membership of over two hundred thousand in 1860. The
majority of black Methodists in the South became part of
the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

The Christian Century^ Chicago. This was perhaps the most
influential Protestant weekly of the time. It was free from
denominational ties by the time of the Frank case, and had
begun life under that name early in 1900, as an organ of
the Disciples of Christ.

The Disciples of Christ, or "Christians," combined a
Presbyterian heritage with Methodist doctrines and Baptist
polity and practice. Thomas Campbell (1763-1854) and

189

190 APPENDIX 4

his son Alexander (1788-1866) were instrumental in the
founding and leadership of the Disciples of Christ.

The magazine itself accepted the date of its real beginning
as 1908 when Charles Clayton Morrison purchased it. From
the start, Morrison was guided by his conviction that the
church was responsible for the character of society and tried
to apply Christian principles to a broad range of contem-
porary concerns. He made the magazine a vigorous inde-
pendent journal of intellectual stature and liberal oudook.
Morrison was the editor during the period 1913-15.

The Christian Century continued the Christian Century of
the Disciples of Christy which began in 1884. It absorbed the
Christian Tribune on June 7, 1900, and the Christian Work
on April 1, 1926. Currendy, the Christian Century is pub-
lished by the Christian Century Foundation in Chicago.

The Christian Observer^ founded in 1813, was a Presbyte-
rian family newspaper. The journal was published by Con-
verse & Co. in Lx)uisville, Kentucky. Reverend David M.
Sweets, D.D. was editor during the time of the Frank issue.
The classic form of Presbyterianism took shape in Scot-
land. Francis Makemie (1658?-1708) was the major figure
associated with the growth of American Presbyterianism.
The Westminster Confession (1729) serves as the doctrinal
standard of American Presbyterianism.

The Christian Register was published by the Christian Reg-
ister Association in Boston. The periodical was established
in 1821.

The Congregatumalist and Christian World succeeded The
Recorder [founded in 1816] and The Congre^fationalist
[founded in 1849]. It was published by the Pilgrim Press
which was incorporated as The Congregational Sunday
School and Publishing Society, Boston and Chicago.

The United Church of Christ was formed on June 25,
1957, following a merger of the Congregational-Christian
Church and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The

Christian Periodical Histories 191

Congregational-Christian Church was the result of the unit-
ing of the Congregational Church with the Christian
Church in 1931.

The Continent was a Christian religious periodical, despite
its non-theological name. It continued The Interior [estab-
lished 1870] and The Westminster [established 1904]. Nolan
R. Best was editor and Oliver R. Williamson was the
publisher during the Frank period. The McCormick Pub-
lishing Company in New \brk was the proprietor.

The Epworth Herald was published by The Methodist Book
Concern in Chicago and New York. The editor was Dan B.
Brummitt during the time of the Frank case.

Herald and Presbyter: A Presbyterian Weekly Paper was pub-
lished by Monfort and Co., Cincinnati and Saint Louis.

Lutheran Church Work was the official weekly paper of the
General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the
United States of America. It continued The Lutheran Mis-
sionary Journal [1880-1908], Lutheran Church Work
[1908-1912], and The Lutheran World [1908-1912]. It
was published in Harrisburg and Philadelphia, Pennsylva-
nia. The Reverend Frederick G. Gotwald, D.D. of York,
Pennsylvania, was the editor during the Frank period.

The Mennonite: A reli^fious weekly journal was the English
organ of the Mennonite General Conference of North
America. It was devoted to the interests of the Mennonite
Church and to the cause of Christ in general. The journal
was published by the Mennonite Book Concern in Berne,
Indiana, and edited during the Frank period by Reverend
C. Van der Smissen.

The Methodist was an inter-conference journal imder the
patronage of the Baltimore, Central Pennsylvania, and Wil-
mington Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
This magazine was published in Baltimore. The publisher
was W. V Guthrie during the period 1913-15.

192 APPENDIX 4

The Northern Christum Advocate was founded in 1841 and
published in Syracuse, New York. H. E. Woolever was the
editor during Frank period.

The Pacific was the spokes-vehicle for the Congregational
Churches on the Pacific Coast. It was edited by W. W. Ferrin
in 1915.

The Presbyterian Banner: An Illustrated Paper for the Ameri-
can Home was founded on July 5, 1814. The periodical was
published by the Presbyterian Banner Publishing Co. in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. James H. Snowden was the editor
during the Frank period.

Reformed Church Messen^fer was founded in November 1827
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was the official organ of the
Eastern, Potomac, and Pittsburgh Synods.

The United Presbyterian had as managing editor David Reed
Miller, D.D. during the Frank period. The proprietors were
Murdoch, Kerr & Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The UniversaUst Leader: Our National Church Paper was
edited by Frederick A. Bisbee, D.D. during the time of the
Frank case. This journal continued The Christian Leader^
The Universalist^ and The Gospel Banner. It was published by
the UniversaUst Publishing House, a religious corporation
organized in April 1852 in Boston and Chicago.

Universalism was the counterpart of Unitarianism
"among less urbane rural folk." The UniversaUst Profession
of Faith and Conditions of Fellowship, which was adopted
at Winchester, New Hampshire, has as two of its essential
principles that there is "just retribution for sin" and "the
final harmony of aU souls with God." UniversaUsm had
been brought to America in 1770 by John Murray, and
advanced under the leadership of Elhanan Winchester.

The Watchman-Examiner: A National Baptist Paper contin-
ued The Watchman [estabUshed 1819], The Examiner [es-
tabUshed 1823], and TheMomin£i Star [estabUshed 1826],

Christian Periodical Histories 193

in addition to The National Baptist^ The Christian Inquirer^
and The Christian Secretary. It was published in Worcester
(Massachusetts), Boston, and New York.

The Wesleyan Christian Advocate was the principal news
medium of the North Georgia Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, and later, as a result of denomi-
national mergers, of the Methodist Church (U.S.) and the
present United Methodist Church. It was published in
Atlanta, Georgia, and edited by W. C. Lovett during the
Frank period.

The Evangelical United Brethren [German Methodist]
and Methodist Churches merged in 1968 to form the
United Methodist Church.

Theodore Peterson's Magazines of the Twentieth Century was consulted
for this appendix along with Winthrop S. Hudson's Religion in America,

AppendixS

NON-RELIGIOUS

PERIODICALS OF THE

FRANK PERIOD

Century Mt^azine: The name of the earlier Scribner^s maga-
zine was changed to the Century in 1881.

Everybodfs: This magazine has been grouped with Collier^s
as being engaged in muckraking. Muckraking refers to
reporting unhappy conditions without advancing a pro-
gram for correcting them.

Forum: A review founded in the hope that it would become
a major influence in art, literature, politics, and science. The
purpose of the Forum^ according to Walter Hines Page, its
editor until 1895, was "to provide discussions about sub-
jects of contemporary interest, in which the magazine is not
partisan, but merely the instrument.''

The Literary Di£fest: This magazine was close to being a
news magazine, but it was essentially a digest. As historian
Calvin Ellsworth Chunn apdy described it in his doctoral
dissertation "History of News Magazines" (1950), Literary
D^est was more "a clipping service for public opinion" than
a true news magazine.

195

196 APPENDIX 5

The Literary Digest was founded in 1890 by Dr. Isaac K.
Funk and Adam W. Wagnalls, former Lutheran ministers.
These men were partners in the Funk and Wagnalls Com-
pany, a New York book publishing firm. In 1890, when
The Literary Di£[est came out, it was intended to be espe-
cially helpfiil to educators and ministers. It was to be "a
repository of contemporaneous thought and research as
presented in the periodical literature of the world." The
magazine extended its editorial scope in 1905 to cover
general news and comment. That same year William Seaver
Woods, a minister's son, became the editor. He held that
post until 1933. The man who probably did most to guide
The Literary Dijfest into becoming a national institution was
Robert J. Cuddihy, its publisher from 1905 to 1937.

The masthead of the 1915 Literary Dijfest noted that
Public Opinion [New York] was combined with The Literary
Di£iest.

Nation: This magazine was bom just after the Civil War
ended and was the elder statesman among the joumals of
opinion in the twentieth century. Its founder was E. L.
Godkin, a young joumalist who had come to America from
Ireland in 1856 to write about conditions in the South.
Godkin's Nation denoimced the Populists, railroad barons,
Tammany, and currency inflation.

New Republic: This magazine was launched in the atmos-
phere of pre- World War 1 revolt and optimism. It stood
alongside the Nation as an organ of liberalism, although the
New Republic was younger by nearly half a century. In 1909,
Herbert Croley was given money from Mr. and Mrs. Wil-
lard D. Straight for a magazine that would reflect Croley's
liberal viewpoint. Croley was the author of The Promise of
American Life^ a book that became the creed of many
liberals.

Outlook: This periodical first appeared in 1867 as a Baptist
paper called the Church Union, Its name was changed to the
Christian Union^ which it held imtil 1893. The Outlook

Non-Religious Pmodicals of the Frank Period 197

appeared in July 1893. The magazine attracted important
contributors with important works. Theodore Roosevelt,
after leaving the presidency, became a contributing editor
for a time. There is discrepancy as to the origin oi Outlook.

South Atlantic Quarterly: This journal was founded in 1902
in order to afford better opportunity in the South for
discussion of literary, historical, economic, and social ques-
tions. It was published by the South Adantic Publishing
Co. at Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina.

Spectator: This magazine was published in London.

Theodore Peterson's Magazines of the Twentieth Century was consulted
for this appendix.

ADDITIONAL READING

Fbr readers interested in finding out more about certain
aspects of the Frank case and its related issues, the
following discussion provides some direction.

There are several sources that should be consulted for
detailed study of the trial and lynching of Leo Frank. These
include works by Leonard Dinnerstein, Comer Vann Wood-
ward, and Clement Charlton Moseley. Leonard Dinner-
stein's The Leo Frank Case stands as the authoritative schol-
arly book on the subject. Professor Dinnerstein had also
done his doctoral dissertation on the Frank case at Colum-
bia University in New York. In addition to being valuable
for information on the Frank case itself, the writings of Dr.
Vann Woodward and Dr. Charlton Moseley provide insight
into the life of Thomas Watson and the activities of the Ku
Klux Klan. Other works about the Klan include David
Chalmers' Hooded Americanism and Kenneth T. Jackson's
The Ku Klux Klan in the City, Fred Ragan's work on Tom
Watson should also be consulted.

Christopher Connolly's pamphlet The Truth About the
Frank Case [1915] stands as an excellent account of certain
points of the trial testimony and the general atmosphere
in Atlanta at the time. Franklin M. Garrett's Atlanta and
Its Environs (Vol. II) along with Nathaniel Harris' Autobiog-
raphy are also important sources of information on the
case. Harris' writing is especially valuable because he was

199

200 ADDITIONAL READING

governor of Georgia during the time when Frank was
lynched. Allen L. Henson's Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer
is another important primary source.

The three major newspapers of Adanta — ^the Constitution^
Journal^ and Georjfian — are invaluable in providing firsthand
insight into the murder of Mary Phagan and the trial and
lynching of Leo Frank. The New Ibrk Times of that era is
also a vital source of information. For an assessment of the
coverage of the Frank case in major metropolitan papers,
black papers, and the Jewish press, Eugene Levy's "Is the
Jew a White Man?" should be consulted. Steven Hertzberg's
Strangers Within the Gate City provides helpfiil background
information on Jewish-black relations in Atlanta.

For readers interested in discussion and analysis of the
phenomenon of anti-Semitism in America, the works of
Oscar Handlin, John Higham, Richard Hofstadter, Leon-
ard Dinnerstein, and Ernest \blkman should be reviewed.
Steven Hertzberg's article in the American Jewish Historical
Quarterly and his book, Stranjfers Within the Gate City^
detail the Jewish experience in Atlanta, including the rise of
Jewish discrimination in that city.

Books by Henry Feingold and Pfeiul Mendes-Flohr/Jehuda
Reinharz are two good sources for gaining historical appre-
ciation for the Jewish experience in America and modem
Western culture in general. Louis Schmeir has done some
valuable work on specific Jewish experiences in Georgia.

Biographical information on the major political and ju-
dicial figures associated with the Frank case can be found in
the Biographical Directory of Governors of the United States
(Sobel/Raimo) and the National Cyclopedia of American
Bio£fraphy.

Statistics on lynching in America are included in Robert
Moton's article, "The South and the Lynching Evil." The
phenomenon of lynching is also addressed in "Lynching in
the Southern States" [Spectator]'^ Winthrop Sheldon's "Shall
Lynching Be Suppressed?"; and Survey [February, 1914].
The definitive work on lynching during the Frank era is

Additional Reading 20 1

Thirty Tears of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918
published by Negro Universities Press.

Insight into Atlanta history can be gotten from Walter G.
Cooper's Official History of Fulton County; George J. Lank-
evich's Atlanta; and Thomas H. Martin's Hand Book of the
City of Atlanta,

A good general overview of American religious experi-
ence is contained in Winthrop S. Hudson's Reli^fion in
America, For a detailed discussion of Christian responses to
the Frank case, see Robert S. Frey^s 'The Case of Leo M.
Frank in the Continuum of American History: An Assess-
ment of Christian Responses" and also his article in the
Georgia Historical Quarterly^ Fall 1987.

All of the sources referenced above appear in the Bibli-
ography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books and Articles

"A. S. Colyar Makes Reply to Statement of Colonel Felder."
Atlanta Journal^ 24 May 1913, p. 3.

"Accuse Solicitor Dorsey." New Ibrk Times^ 24 May 1916, p. 22.

"Acquits Bums Men in the Frank Case." New Ibrk Times^ 1
February 1915.

"All Urged to Write Appeals for Frank." New Tork Times^ 13
December 1914.

"Anti-Semitism and the Frank Case." The Literary Digest 50
(1915): 85-86.

"Appeal in the Frank Case." Outlook 109 (1915): 6-7.

Arnold, Reuben R. The Trial of Leo Frank: Reuben R, Amold^s
Address to the Court in His Behalf, Baxley, Ga.: Classic Publish-
ing Company, 1915. [Introduction by Alvin V. Sellers].

"Ask to Show Frank Films." New Tbrk Times^ 14 September 1915,
p. 7.

Atlanta City Direaory. 1913, 1914, 1915.

"Atlanta Greeks Protest Against Headline Published in Extra of
an Adanta Afternoon F2Lpcr.^^ Atlanta Journal^ 8 May 1913.

"Attack Is Made on Child Lzbor,^^ Atlanta Constitution^ 28 April
1913, p. 1.

203

204 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baggott, James L. History of the Atlanta Baptist Churches to 1964.
n.p., 1964.

Baker, Donald P. 'Tfes, Virginia, There Is a Movie Santa." The
Washin£fton Pm, 4 July 1987.

Bauer, Esther M. "Frank Pardon Denied." Atlanta Constitution^
23 December 1983.

Bauman, Mark. "Role Theory and History: The Illustration of
Ethnic Brokerage in the Atlanta Jewish Community in an Era
of Transition and Covil^ct,^ American Jewish History 73 (1983):
71-95.

"Billy Sunday for Frank." Nnp York Times, 12 May 1915.

"Bloody Thumb Print Is Found on Door." Atlanta Journal, 29
April 1913, p. 4.

"Both Sides Heard on Frank Appeal." New Jork Times, 15 June
1915, pp. 1,8.

Boylston, Elise Reid. Atlanta: Its Lore, Legends, and Laughter,
Doraville, Ga.: Foote and Davis, 1968.

" 'Break* in the Frank Trial May Come with the Hearing of Jim
Conley's Testimony." ^tewt/i Constitution, 3 August 1913, p.
3.

Bricker, L. O. "A Great American Tragedy." Shane Quarterly 4
(1943): 89-95.

Brown, Tom Watson. "Notes on the Case of Leo Max Frank and
Its Aftermath." [Atlanta Miscellany File, # 572, Box 2; Emory
University, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Special Collections
Department]

"Burglars Try to Enter Home of Frank Juror." Atlanta Constitu-
tion, 29 My 1913, p. 1.

"Bums Confers with Leo M. Frank." New Jork Times, 18 March
1914.

"Bums Evidence for Frank." New Jork Times, 31 March 1914.

Burt, Olive Woolley., ed. American Murder Ballads and Their
Stories, New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.

Biblio0raphy 205

Busch, Francis X. Guilty or Not Guilty? An Account of the Trials of
the Leo Frank Case, the D. C. Stephenson Case, the Samuel Insull
Case, the Al£ier Hiss Case, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc.,
1952. [Part of the Notable American Trials series]

"Business Men Protest Sensational ''Extr2is\^^ Atlanta Journal^ 30
April 1913, p. 1.

Cameron, Wilbert. "Anti-Semitism and the Frank Case." Master's
thesis. University of Cincinnati, 1965.

'The Case of Leo M. Frank." Outlook 110 (1915): 166-68.

Chalmers, David M. Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku
KluxKlan. New York: Viewpoints, 1976.

"Character Witnesses Are Called in the Case by City Detectives."
Atlanta Journal^ 9 May 1913.

"Clash Comes Over Evidence of Detective John St2imcs,^^ Atlanta
Constitution, 30 July 1913.

"Col. Thomas B. Felder Dictographed by City Detectives." At-
lanta Journal, 23 May 1913, p. 1.

"Comment on Frank Case." New lork Times, 13 December 1914.

"Commissioners at Prison When Mob Seized Frank." Atlanta
Journal, 17 August 1915, p. 2.

"Complete Summary of Testimony of Witnesses at Inquest."
Atlanta Journal, 30 April 1913, p. 6.

Concise Dictionary of American Biography. 3d ed. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1980.

"Confidence Expressed in Leo M. Vxzrk,'''' Atlanta Journal, 2 May
1913.

"Confident Truth Will Out." New York Times, 5 March 1914.

"Conley, Not Franlc, Called Slayer." New lork Times, 4 October
1914, p. 13.

Connolly, Christopher Powell. 'The Frank Case." Collier's, 26
December 1914, pp. 18-25. [Another article by C. R Connolly
appeared in the December 19, 1914 issue of Collier's.]

206 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Connolly, Christopher Powell. The Truth About the Frank Case,
New York: Vail-Bellou Company, 1915.

^''Constitution's Extra Tells Atlanta of the Xferdict in Frank Case."
Atlanta Constitution^ 26 August 1913, p. 1.

"Contemptible Unfairness." Wesleyan Christian Advocate^ 24 Sep-
tember 1915, p. 9.

Cooper, Walter Gerald. Official History of Fulton County, History
Commission, 1934.

"Cornell Appeal for Frank." New Tark Times, 27 December 1914,
p. 12.

"Coroner Donehoo Points Out the Law to the Jurors." Atlanta
Journal, 9 May 1913.

"Coroner's Inquest Resumed 2:30 PM.; Frank Will Testify."
Atlanta Journal, 5 May 1913, p. 1.

"Coroner's Jury Visits Scene of Murder add [sic] Adjourns With-
out Rendering Verdict,'''' Atlanta Journal, 28 April 1913, p. 2.

"Could Have Cleared Victim of 1915 Lynch Mob, Man Says."
The Washin£fton Post, 14 March 1982, p. A8.

"A Courageous Governor." Outlook 110 (1915): 492-93.

Davis, David. 'The Leo Frank Case." Jewish Di^fest, December
1978, pp. 61-63. [Translated by Dorothy D. Sablosky and
Annette Lashner.]

De Steffani, Azalia E. LeoM. Frank: The Martyr Jew (L.M.F. Love
Mercy Faith) [Leo Frank File, MSS91, Box 6, Folder 10;
Atlanta Historical Society]

"Defense Is V\c2&cd,'^ Atlanta Constitution, 29 July 1913, p. 1.

"Defense Riddles John Black's Testimony." Atlanta Constitution,
31 July 1913, p. 1.

Deitch, David. "Leo Frank: A Look at Georgia's Most Infamous
Trial." Mimeographed. Westminster High School, 1984. ["Per-
sonality File"; Atlanta Historical Society]

Biblio£fraphy 207

"Denunciation of the South." Wesleyan Christian Advocate^ 3
September 1915, pp. 3-4.

"Detective Harry Scott's Testimony as Given Before Coroner's
]ury,^^ Atlanta Joufnal^ 9 May 1913.

"Detective John Black Tell [sic] the Jury His Views on the Phagan
Czsc:' Atlanta Journal, 9 May 1913.

"Detective Waggoner Describes Extreme Nervousness of Frank."
Atlanta Constitution, 3 August 1913, p. 3.

"Detectives Confer with Coroner and Solicitor Dorscy,^'' Atlanta
Journal, 3 May 1913, p. 1.

"Detectives Eliminate Evidence in Conflict with Theory That
Phagan Girl Never Left Vzctory,^^ Atlanta Journal, 1 May 1913,

p.i.

"Did Murderer Seek to Bum Slain Girl's Body, and Did the
Watchman Interrupt H\mV^ Atlanta Journal, 1 May 1913.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. The Leo Frank Case, New \brk: Columbia
University Press, 1968. [This work is being reprinted for release
in 1987 by the University of Georgia Press in Athens.]

Dinnerstein, Leonard. 'The Leo Frank Case." Ph.D. dissertation,
Columbia University, 1966.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. "Leo M. Frank and the American Jewish
Community,^^ American Jewish Archives 20 (1968): 107-26.

Dinnerstein, Leonard. "A Neglected Aspect of Southern Jewish
History,^^ American Jewish Historical ^arterly 61 (1971): 52-
68.

" 'Dirty Gang' Filled Out Record or Else Tooled Dictograph'."
Atlanta Journal, 24 May 1913, p. 1.

"Dorsey Accuses Frank Defense." New lark Times, 30 April 1914.

"Dorsey Assails Slaton and Jews." New Tbrk Times, 12 September
1916.

"Dorsey Sztis&cd'' Atlanta Constitution, 29 July 1913, p. 1.

208 BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Dorsey Steers Clear of Felder Controversy,^^ Atlanta Joutnal^ 24
May 1913, p. 3.

Drachman, Bernard. "Anti-Jewish Prejudice in America." The
Forum UI (1914): 31-40.

"Editorial." The American Jewish Review^ July 1915, p. 1.

"Editorial Comment on Current Events." The Watchman-Exam-
iner, 26 August 1915, p. 1903.

"Editor's Outlook." Northern Christian Advocate, 19 August
1915, p. 5.

"Editor's Outlook." Northern Christian Advocate, 26 August
1915, p. 5.

Eighmy, John Lee. Churches in Cultural Captivity: A History of the
Social Attitudes of Southern Baptists. Knoxville: University of
Tennessee Press, 1972.

Encyclopaedia Judaica. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1971.

'The End of die Frank Case." Outlook 111 (1915): 114-15.

"Evidence for Frank Ignored, She Says." New lork Times, 14
March 1914.

"Factory Clock Not Punched for Hours on Night of Murder."
Atlanta Constitution, 30 April 1913, p. 1.

Feingold, Henry L. Zion in America: The Jewish Experience from
Colonial Times to the Present, rev. ed. New Ifork: Hippocrene
Books, Inc., 1981.

Ferrin, W. W. The Pacific, 1 September 1915.

"Finding of Dead Girl's P^asol Is Told by Policeman Lasseter."
Atlanta Constitution, 3 August 1913, p. 3.

"Frank a Model Boy." New lork Times, 14 March 1914.

"Frank Asks Six Questions." New lork Times, 15 March 1914, p.
9.

"Frank Case." Outlook 108 (1914): 859-60.

The Frank Case. Adanta: 1913.

Bibliography 209

'The Frank Case.'' The Cofigregatimalist and Christian World C
(1915): 314.

'The Frank Case." Nnv York Times, 29 November 1914.

"Frank Case Damage Suit.^^New Tbrk Times, 21 January 1915.

'The Frank Case: Denying Posthumous J^don,^ Jewish Di£iest 29
(1984): 56-57.

"Frank Case Soon Clear." New Ibrk Times, 4 October 1914, p.
13.

"Frank Case Yields New Bribe Charge." W?w? Tbrk Times, 13 March
1914.

"Frank Conviaed, Asserts Innocence." Atlanta Constitution, 26
August 1913, p. 1.

"Frank Goes to Prison for Life." TheMennonite XXX (1915): 7.

"Frank Is Innocent, Says George S. Dougherty." New Tbrk Times,
10 January 1915.

"Frank Jurors Did Not Even Know General Assembly Had Ad-
journed,^^ Atlanta Constitution, 27 August 1913.

"Frank Lynchers Sought." The Continent, 26 August 1915, p.
1135.

"Frank Murderers to Go Unpunished." The Herald and Presbyter,
8 September 1915, p. 28.

"Frank Railroaded, E. V. Debs Asserts." New Tbrk Times, 28
December 1914, p. 4.

"Frank Rode to Macon on the Car 'Valdosta'." Valdosta Daily
Times, 22 June 1915, p. 8.

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"Superintendent Frank Is Once More Put on Witness Stand."
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Survey^ 14 February 1914, p. 625.

Taylor, Ron. "Digging Into Case Uncovered Ugly Chapter of
City's Yiistorf,'" Atlanta Constitution^ 12 March 1986.

'There Is Another Side." Wesleyan Christian Advocate^ 10 Septem-
ber 1915, pp. 3-4.

They Don^t Forget, [motion picture] 1937.

Thirty Tears of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918, New Tfork:
Negro Universities Press, 1969. [Originally published in 1919
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People.]

Thompson, Ernest Trice. Presbyterians in the South. Richmond:
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Thompson, Wytt Ephraim. A Short Renew of the Frank Case.
Adanta: 1914.

"$1,000 Bribe Offer to Implicate Frank." New lork Times, 15
March 1914, p. 9.

"$1,000 B£wzrd.'' Atlanta Constitution, 29 April 1913.

'Three Witnesses Describe Finding Mary Phagan's Body." At-
lanta Constitution, 30 July 1913, p. 1.

Trachtenberg, Joshua. The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Concept
tion of the Jew and Its Relation to Modem Antisemitism. Philadel-
phia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983.

Train, Arthur. "Did Leo Frank Get Justice?" Everybodfs 32
(1915): 314-17.

'Trial of Leo M. Frank on Charge of Murder Begins; Mrs.
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"20 Year Jail Sentence for Connally [sic]." New lark Titnes^ 25
February 1919, p. 5.

'Two Murdering Notes Add Mystery to Cr\mc,^^ Atlanta Journal^
28 April 1913, p. 2.

'Two New Witnesses in Phagan Mystery to Testify Thursday."
Atlanta Journal^ 7 May 1913, p. 1.

"$2,200 B^wzidV Atlanta Constitution, 30 April 1913.

"A Typical Eastern Comment on the Lynching of Leo Frank."
Atlanta Journal, 19 August 1915.

"Unusual Interest Centers in Mrs. Frank's Appearance." Atlanta
Constitution, 29 July 1913.

"Use of Dictaphone on Frank and Negro Is Denied by Police."
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" 'VUifying a State.' ''Nation 101 (1915): 251-52.

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"A Warning to Be Heeded." Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 15
October 1915, pp. 4-5.

" 'We Have Enough Votes If We Get the Evidence,' The Mayor Is
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1.

Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 27 August 1915, p. 6.

Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 10 September 1915, p. 9.

Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 17 September 1915, p. 6.

"Where Was Mary Phagan on Saturday Afternoon?" Atlanta
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"Who Saw Pretty Mary Phagan After 12 O'Clock on Saturday?"
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Woods, Henry. 'The Crime at MzntrxsL^ America XIII (1915):
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Woodward, Comer Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel, 2d ed.
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Annie Maud Carter Affidavit, (Anti-Defamation League of B'nai
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Decision in Response to Application for Posthumous Pardon for Leo M,

Biblio0rapl^ 229

Frank, [State Board of Pardons and Paroles, 1983.] (Personality
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Leo M. Frank, Appellant v. C. Wheeler Mangunty Sheriff of Fulton
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230 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Thompson-Frey) .

Jerry Thompson: Reporter for the Nashville Tennessean, August 4,
1987 (Nancy Thompson-Frey).

INDEX

A

Adams, Brooks, 124, 125. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Adams, Henry, 124, 125. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Addams, Jane (Hull House), 73
Adelstein, Samuel Q., 137. See also George K. Delands; The

Frank Case (Film); Commissioner George H. Doll (New

%rk); Rolands Feature Film Company
Alexander, Governor Moses (Idaho), 128
Alexander, U.S. District Attorney H., 128
America, 175, 176, 184. See also Father Henry Woods
American Jewish Committee, 59, 151. See also Louis Marshall
The American Jewish Review, 9 1
Anderson, Call Officer W. E, 1, 14, 15
AntiCapital Punishment Society of America, 85-86. See also

Maurice Bennett Kovnat
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, 136, 151, 154, 155.

See also Charles F. Wittenstein
Anti-Semitism,
in America, 23, 24, 25, 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 121,

122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 186. See also Ku Klux Klan;

Populist Movement; Leonard Dinnerstein; John Higham;

Oscar Handlin; Richard Hofstadter; Steven Hertzberg;

Stereotypes of the Jew

Economic Theories, 121, 122

Frank Case and, 55, 59, 104, 111, 112, 121, 148, 157. See
also "Mob Spirit"

Gilded Age (1870-1900), 115, 119, 121

Ideological Theories, 127

231

232 INDEX

in Europe and Russia, 56-57, 58, 117, 119, 122. See also

Joshua Trachtenberg; Talmud Burnings in Europe;

Menahem Mendel Beilis; Stereotypes of the Jew
Appelbaum, Mrs. Callie Scott, 33-34
Arnold, Reuben (Attorney), 29, 69
Atlanta Constitution^ 8, 9, 53, 55. See also Clark Howell
Atlanta Crackers (Baseball Team), 4, 52. See also Southern

League
Atlanta Independent (Black Newspaper), 62. See also Jews and

Blacks
Atlanta Jewish Federation, 151. 5^^ also Georgia State Board of

Pardons and Paroles
Atlanta Journal^ 13, 89. See also Murder Notes
Atlanta Racial Riot (1906), 55. See also Hoke Smith; Clark

HoweU

B

Bachman, Professor George (Atlanta College of Physicians and
Surgeons), 47

Bailey, Gordon (Elevator Operator), 7

The Ballad of Mary Phagan (NBC Mini-Series), 138, 139

Barber, R. L., 69. See also Reverend C. B. Ragsdale

Barrett, R. B., 34

Bealer, Reverend Alex, 185

Beavers, Police Chief James L., 11, 12

Beck, Justice (Georgia Supreme Court), 79

Beilis, Menahem Mendel (Beilis Affair in Russia, 1911), 23, 56,
57. See also Blood Libel Charge Against Jews; Anti-
Semitism in Europe and Russia; Stereotypes of the Jew

Benjamin, Judah (Confederate Leader), 73, 82

BibliaAmericanuum^ 116. See also Cotton Mather

Bimetallists, 116

The Birth of a Nation (Film), 143, 144. See also Ku Klux Klan;
Colonel William Joseph Simmons; Thomas Dixon; David
Ward Griffith

Black, Detective John, 11, 66, 98

Blanchett, Mrs. A., 17. See also Paul Beniston Bowen

Blau, Dr. Joel, 72

Index 233

Blood Libel Charge Against Jews, 117. See also Menahem

Mendel Beilis; Joshua Tractenberg; Stereotypes of the Jew
Blumberg, Mrs. Janice Rothschild, 134. See also Hebrew

Benevolent Congregation Bombing in 1958; Rabbi Jacob

M. Rothschild
Bowen, Paul Beniston, 17. See also Mrs. A. Blanchett
Brandon, Morris (Attorney), 29
Bricker, Reverend Luther Otterbein, 67, 68, 129, 182. See also

Shane Quarterly
Brin, Alexander (The Boston Traveler), 90. See also Jeffersonian
Brookshire, Reverend Cicero Osbom, 182
Brown, Governor Joseph Mackey (Georgia), 83
Brown, Sergeant, 2
Brown, Tom Watson (Great grandson of Thomas Edward

Watson), 138, 157
Burk, Captain J. M. (Milledgeville penitentiary), 93
Bums, William J. (Detective), 66, 81, 82
Busch, Francis X. (Author), 137

C

Caeser^s Column, 126. See also Ignatius Donnelly; Populist

Movement
Campbell, Wade, 42-43
Carson, Rebecca, 44

Carter, Annie Maud, 26, 151, 158. See also Jim Conley
Casaday, P^tor J. C, 186
Chalmers, David, 144. See also Ku Klux Klan
Children Supporting Leo Frank, 76
Christian Advocate, 179
Christian Century, 114, 171, 187. See also W. J. Lhamon; Robert

Elliott Speer
The Christian Re£fister, 176, 184
Citizens' Cemetery (Confederate Cemetery), 9, 10
Civic Education League, 60-61
Clark Wooden Ware Company, 40-41, 47
Cobb County (Georgia), 90
Coca-Cola, 30. See also John S. Pemberton
Coleman Damage Suit, 74
Coleman, J. William, 6, 10, 14

234 INDEX

Coleman, Mrs. Frances "Fannie" (Phagan), 6, 9, 10, 32

Confederate Memorial Day, 4

Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer, 58. See also Allen Lumpkin

Henson
The Con£ire£iationalist and Christian World, 177
Conley, James, 15, 26, 37-38, 39, 40, 46, 54, 55, 56, 70, 132.

See also Annie Maud Carter
Connolly, Christopher Powell (Lawyer, Writer), 50, 110, 111
The Continent, 174, 178
Cornell University, 19, 54
Coughlin, Father Charles, 125. See also Anti-Semitism in

America
Creen, J. William, 90

D

Daniels, Secretary of the Navy Josephus, 105

Darley, N. V, 12, 35, 40, 41

Darrow, Clarence, 76

Davis, Benjamin, 62

Davis, David (Atlanta Resident), 55

Dearborn Independent, 122, 123. See also Henry Ford

Death in the Deep South (Novel), 137, 138. See also Ward Greene;
They Dont For£iet (Film)

Debs, Eugene Victor (Socialist Leader), 72

Delands, George K., 137. See also Samuel Q. Adelstein;

Commissioner George H. Doll; The Frank Case (Film);
Rolands Feature Film Company

Denham, Harry, 11, 43

De Steffani, Azalia E., 137

Dinnerstein, Leonard, 105, 121, 122, 129, 138. See also Anti-
Semitism in America

Dixon, Thomas, 143. See also The Birth of a Nation

Dobbs, Captain, 98

Dobbs, Mayor (Marietta), 104

Dobbs, Sergeant, 1-2, 33

Doll, Commissioner George H. (New \brk), 137. See also The
Frank Case (Film)

Donehoo, Coroner Paul, 15, 17. See also Exhumations of Mary
Phagan

Index 235

Donnelly, Ignatius, 126. See also Caeser^s Column; Populist
Movement

Dorsey, Solicitor General Hugh Manson (also Governor), 15,
16, 22, 29, 49-50, 53, 71, 80, 81, 135, 136, 137, 144,
145. See also 'The Negro in Georgia"

Douglas, Stephen Arnold, 21

Drachman, Rabbi Bernard, 112. See also Anti-Semitism in
America

Dreyfus, Alfred (Dreyfus Affair), 57, 110. See also Anti-Semitism
in Europe and Russia

Drumont, Edouard Adolphe (France), 122. See also Anti-
Semitism in Europe and Russia

DuBois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 62. See also Jews
and Blacks

Duehring, Karl Eugen (Germany), 122, 123. See also Anti-
Semitism in Europe and Russia

Dukes, David, 148. See also Jerry Thompson; Ku Klux Klan.

E

Eisenhower, President Dwight David, 144. See also Hebrew
Benevolent Congregation Bombing in 1958; Mrs. Janice
Rothschild Blumberg

Ennis, Captain J. H., 94

Epps, George (Newspaper Boy), 41, 67

The Epworth Herald, 172, 174, 178

Exhumations of Mary Phagan, 15, 17. See also Coroner Paul
Donehoo

Expulsions of Jews
in Europe, 23, 117, 118
in Thomasville, Georgia, 25. See also Louis E. Schmeir

F

Faber, Eberhard, 20

Fallows, Right Reverend Samuel, 76

Felder, Colonel Thomas B., 16-17, 28. See also Chief Newport

Lanford
Ferguson, Helen, 42
Fields, Dr. Edward R., 152. See also Ku Klux Klan

236 INDEX

Fish, Chief Justice (Georgia Supreme Court), 79

Ford, Henry, 122, 123. See also the Dearborn Independent; The

Jewish Peril; Protocols of the Elders qfZion
Forrest, Nathan Bedford, xix. See also Ku Klux Klan
Foster, Reverend Thomas E., 187
The Frank Case (Film), 137. See also Samuel Q. Adelstein;

George K. Delands; Commissioner George H. Doll;

Rolands Feature Film Company
Frank, Leo Max, 5, 11, 12, 16, 19, 26, 29, 48, 49, 53, 66, 69,

85, 90, 104
Frank, Lucille (Selig), 20, 30, 53, 75, 86, 102, 103, 131, 132
Frank, Moses, 16, 107
Frank, Rae, 45
Frank, Rudolph, 19

"Frank Tree", 99. See also William J. Frey
Frank v. Mangum {2i7 U.S. 309), 71, 163-168. See also Louis

Marshall
Freshman, Clark J. (Harvard University '86), 155. See also

Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles
Frey, William J., 96, 99. See also "Frank Tree"
Frey's Gin Road, 96
Fulton County, 21
Fulton County Superior Court, 69

G

Gantt, John M., 7, 8, 12, 15

Gate City Lodge 144 (B'nai B'rith), 16, 21. See also Milton

Klein
"Gate City of the South", 4, 5

General Grant's Order Nunriber 11, 24-25. See also Anti-
Semitism in America
Georgia Prison Commission, 72, 78, 79, 94. See also Reverend

Dr. John E. White
Georgia State Board of P^dons and Paroles, 151, 153, 154. See

also Mobley Howell; Louis Kunian; Clark J. Freshman;

Charles E Wittenstein; Dale M. Schwartz, Wayne Snow Jr.;

Mrs. Mamie B. Reese; Michael H. Wing; James T. Morris;

James Phagan
Georgia Supreme Court, 65, 66, 70, 79

Index Til

Golden, Harry Lewis, 138, 157. See also A Link GirllsDead

Gompers, Samuel (American Labor Leader), 76

Gordon, George (Attorney), 49

Granger Movement, 125. See also Populist Movement

Greenback Party, 124, 125. See also Populist Movement

Greenberg & Bond, Undertakers, 98

Greene, Ward, 137-138. See also Death in the Deep South; They

Don^t Forget (Film)
Greenfield, Mr. A. D., 46-47. See also \fenable Building
Griffith, Governor Marvin (Georgia), 144
Griffith, David Ward, 143. See also The Birth of a Nation

H

Haas, Herbert (Attorney), 8, 29

Habeas corpus, 70

Hall, Corinthia, 17, 42

HaU,Hattie, 11-12,42

Handlin, Oscar, 129. See also Anti-Semitism in America

Hardwick, Governor Thomas William (Georgia), 144

Harris, Dr. H. T. (Physician), 37

Harris, Governor Joe Frank (Georgia), 153

Harris, Governor Nathaniel E. (Georgia), 89, 90, 91, 104, 106,

107
Harris, Joel Chandler, 30. See also Uncle Remus
Hawley, Mrs. Lena E., 186

Hebrew Benevolent Congregation (The Temple), ll-li
Bombing in 1958, 134, 144. See also Rabbi Jacob M.

Rothschild; Mrs. Janice Rothschild Blumberg; President

Dwight David Eisenhower
Hebrew Union College, 157. See also John Lawrence

Seigenthaler
Henig, Gerald S., 83. See also Progressivism (California)
Henslee, A. H., 52. See also Jury Members in Phagan Murder

Trial
Henson, Allen Lumpkin, 58, 59. See also Confessions of a Criminal

Lawyer
The Herald and Presbytery 174

Hertzberg, Steven, 129. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Heyman, Arthur (Dorsey, Brewster, HoweU & Hyman), 22,

151. S^^ also Charles F. Wittenstein
Hickman, Reverend G. L., 68-69

238 INDEX

Hicks, Miss Grace, 2

Higdon, J. E, 52. See also Jury Members in Phagan Murder Trial

Higham, John, 129. See also Anti-Semitism in America

Hill, Judge Ben H., 69. See also Reverend C. B. Ragsdaie; R. L.

Barber
Hofstadter, Richard, 125, 129. See also Populist Movement;

Anti-Semitism in America
Holderiy, Dr. A. R., 68
Hoiloway, E. E, 34, 41
Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell, Jr., 70, 71, 82, 163-168. See

also ''Mob Spirit'
Hooper, Erank A., Sr. (Attorney), 29. See also Solicitor General

Hugh Manson Dorsey
Howe, Mark DeWolfe, 144. See also Tom Mooney
Howell, Clark, 55. See also The Atlanta Constitution; Atianta

Racial Riot (1906)
Howell, Mobley, 153. S^^ also Georgia State Board of Pardons

and Paroles
Hudson, Winthrop S. (Relijiion in America), 187
Hughes, Justice Charles Evans, 71
Hurt, Dr. J. W. (Physician), 36, 37

I

The Illinois State Journal, 75

Immigration to the United States, 23, 112. See also Edward
Alsworth Ross
Jewish,20, 112, 113
Eastern European, 23, 103. See also Rabbi David Marx
Western European, 22
Scotch-Irish, 22
The Independent, 1 10. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Irwin, Captain L. B. (Train Conductor), 86. See also "Valdosta"

/

Jackson, Kenneth T, 143, 144. See also Ku Klux Klan; Colonel

William Joseph Simmons

Index 239

Jeffmonian (Thomson, Ga.), 77^ 90, 126. See alsoThomzs

Edward Watson; Anti-Semitism in America, Frank Case

and; "Mob Spirit'
Jeffries, W. M., 52. See also Jury Members in Phagan Murder

Trial
Jenkins, Lulu Belle, 66. See also Police Fraud and the Frank Case
The Jew at Homey 25. See also Joseph Pennell
"Jew Badge", 119. See also Anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia;

Joshua Trachtenberg
The Jewish Peril, 124. See also the Dearborn Independent; Henry

Ford
The Jewish Times (San Francisco), 91
Jews and Blacks, 61, 62. See also Eugene Levy
Johnson, Haynes, 157. See also Alonzo McClendon Mann
Joseph, Senator Irving J., 90, 91
Jury Members in Phagan Murder Trial

Nicknames of, 31-32, 52. See also A. H. Henslee; J. E

Higdon; W. M. Jeffries; J. T Ozbum; Frederick Van L.

Smith; M. S. Woodward

K

Kceler, O. B., 105-106

Kennedy, Magnolia, 42

Kerns, Helen, 44

Kimball House Hotel, 30

Klein, Maurice, 106

Klein, Milton, 16. See also Gate City Lodge 144 (B'nai B'rith)

Knight, Lucian Lamar, 60

Knights of Mary Phagan (Lynch Mob; Vigilance Committee),

95, 104, 105, 132, 156. See also Ku Klux Klan
Kom, Bertram (Historian), 115
Kovnat, Maurice Bennett, 85-86. See also AntiCapital

Punishment Society of America
Kraus, Adolf, 136. See also Anti-Defamation League of B'nai

B'ridi
Kriegshaber, Victor (Atlanta Jewish leader), 22
Ku Klux Klan (Invisible Empire), 76, 77, 95, 122, 132, 133,

143, 144, 145, 145, 148, 152, 157. See also Colonel

William Joseph Simmons; Nathan Bedford Forrest; Knights

240 INDEX

of Mary Phagan; Stone Mountain (Georgia); The Birth cfa
Nation
Kunian, Lx)uis, 154. See also Georgia State Board of Pardons and
Paroles

L

Lamar, Justice Joseph Rucker, 70

Lance, Thomas Bertram, 151, 158. See also John Lawrence

Seigenthaier
Lanford, Chief Newport, 11, 28. See also Colonel Thomas B.

Felder
Lankevich, George J. (Atlanta: A Chronokgical and Documentary

History), 106
Lasker, Albert, 60

Lawlor, Associate Justice William P. (California), 111
Lee, Newt, 1-2, 7, 10-11, 12, 14, 15, 32, 33, 54
Lehon, Daniel (Bums Detective Agency), 106
The Leo Frank Case (Columbia University, 1968), 138. See also

Leonard Dinnerstein
Leo Frank Protest League, 105
Levy, Eugene, 62. See also Jews and Blacks
Levy, Mrs. A. P., 44

Lewengrub, Stuart, 158. See also Charles F. Wittenstein
Lhamon, W. J., 114, 115. See also Christian Century
Lichtenstein, Sigmund, 126. See also Louis E. Schmeir; Thomas

Edward Watson
Lindsay, Reverend William, 183-184
Lines, Reverend F. A., 68
Linkous, Reverend Dr., 9
A Little Girl is Dead, 138, 157. See also Harry Lewis Golden;

Charles F. Wittenstein; John Lawrence Seigenthaier
Lockhart, Fred (a.k.a. D. B. [Bunce] Napier), 105. See also

Knights of Mary Phagan; Leonard Dinnerstein
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 124. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Lutheran Church Work, 174, 179
Lynching, U.S. History of, 109, 110, 129. See also Thirty Tears of

Lynching in the United States 1889-1918

Index 241

M

Mackay, Reverend William R., 81

McKnight, Minola, 43. See also Police Fraud and the Frank Case

McWilliams, Carey, 127. See also Anti-Semitism in America

McWorth, W. D. (Pinkerton Agent), 45-46

Mangum, Sheriff C. Wheeler, 86

Mann, Alonzo McClendon, 44, 45, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153,

157, 158. See also Jerry Thompson, Robert Sherborne; John

Lawrence Seigenthaler; Charles F. Wittenstein; Robert

Mann
Mann, Robert, 149. See also Alonzo McClendon Mann; Jerry

Thompson
Marcus, Jacob Rader (Historian), 115
Marietta (Georgia), 95, 104, 152
Marshall, Louis, 59, 60, 70, 71, 105, 136. See also American

Jewish Committee; Rabbi David Marx; Frank v. Mangum
Marthasville, 21
Marx, Rabbi David, 24, 59, 103, 104, 106. See also Louis

Marshall
Mather, Cotton, 1 16. See also BibliaAmericanuum
Matthau, Walter, 138
May Laws of 1882 (Russia), 23. See also Anti-Semitism in

Europe and Russia
Mayo, Chief, 101

Mendes-Flohr, Paul R. and Reinharz, Jehuda, 63
The Mennonite, 54, 89
The Methodist, 174

Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 169, 170, 173
Milledgeville penitentiary, 86, 93, 94, 105
Miller, Hattie, 67. See also Police Fraud and the Frank Case
MiUer, L. O., 182

Minschuk, M., 57. See also Menahem Mendel Beilis
"Mob Spirit", 51, 52, 68, 71, 76, 81, 85, 89, 167, 172, 178,

181, 186. See also Anti-Semitism in America, Frank Case

and; Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ]r,;Jeffersonian;

Governor John Marshall Slaton
Montag, Sigmund, 42

Mooney, Tom, 144. See also Mark DeWolfe Howe
Moore, Silas, 153. S^^ also Georgia State Board of Pardons and

Paroles

242 INDEX

Moore v. Dempsey (261 U.S. 86), 71, 72

Morris, James T, 158. See also Georgia State Board of Pardons

and Paroles
Morris, Judge Newton, 97, 98. See also Attorney John Wood
Moseley, Charlton, 76, 144. See also Ku Klux Klan
MuUinax, Arthur, 7, 8, 15

Murder Notes, 2, 8, 13, 26, 35, 39. See also the Atlanta Joufnal
TheMusko£fee Times-Democrat (Oklahoma), 75

N

The Nashville Tennessean, 150. See also John Lawrence

Seigenthaler
National Cyclopedia of American Biography, 83. See also Thomas

Edward Watson
National Pencil Company, 5, 12, 47, 74, 85
National Socialists (Nazis), 119, 123
NBC Mini-Series. See The Ballad of Mary Phagan
'The Negro in Georgia", 136. See also Solicitor General Hugh

Manson Dorsey
Newman, Harvey Knupp (Religion in Adanta), 170
New York Times, 57, 61, 68, 171. See also Adolph Ochs
Nicholas II, 57, 124. See also Protocols of the Elders ofZion;

Menahem Mendel Beilis
Night Fell on Georgia, 137. See also Charles Samuels; Louise

Samuels
Night Witch (Play), 138
Northern Christian Advocate, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178

O

O'Callaghan, Reverend P J., 76

Ochs, Adolph, 59. See also the New lork Times; Louis Marshall
Outlook, 185. See also Reverend Alvan E Sherrill
Ozbum, J. T, 52, 68. See also Jury Members in Phagan Murder
Trial

P

The Pacific, 178

"Pale of Setdement" (Russia), 112

Index 243

I^don, 156. See also Governor John Marshall Slaton

P^ker,D.M., 113

Payne, Frank, 45

Pemberton, John S., 30. See also Coca-Cola

Pennell, Joseph, 25. See also The Jew at Home

Phagan, Ben, 6

Phagan, Charlie, 6, 131

Phagan, James, 152, 153, 154

Phagan, John, 6

Phagan, Joshua, 6

Phagan, Mary (Murder Victim; Little Mary Phagan), 5, 6

Phagan, Mary (Great-niece of the Murdered Girl), 131, 132,

152, 153, 156
Phagan, Miss Lizzie, 9
Phagan, Ollie Mae (Barrett), 6, 9, 131
Phagan, W. J., 7
Pinkerton Detective Agency, 8, 27-28. See also Detective Harry

Scott
Pitney, Justice Mahlon, 82. See also Frank v. Mangum
Police Fraud and the Frank Case, 27, 66, 67. See also Minola

McKnight; Hattie Miller; Mrs. J. B. Simmons
Populist Movement, 124, 125, 126, 127. See also Comer Vann

Woodward; Richard Hofstadter; Granger Movement;

Greenback Party; Anti-Semitism in America
Pound, Ezra, 125

Powell, Arthur (Little, Powell, Smith & Goldstein), 78, 137
The Presbyterian Banner y 176, 177
Proctor, Reverend H. H., 183

Progressivism (California), 83. See also Gerald S. Henig
Prohibition, IZ—lAi

Protestant Episcopal Church, 170. See also Dr. C. B. Wilmer
Protocols of the Elders ofZion, 123, 124. See also Henry Ford; The

Jewish Peril; Nicholas II; Anti-Semitism

Quinn, Lemmie A., 18, 43

244 INDEX

R

Ragsdale, Reverend C. B., 69

Ready, Milton L., 145

Reese, Mrs. Mamie B., 158. See also Georgia State Board of

Pardons and Kiroles
The Reformed Church Messen£fery 174, 179
"Resurgens Atlanta", 4
Riggins, John (Shooting Victim), 109
Roan, Judge Leonard Strickland, 29, 50, 58, 59, 74, 83
Roberts, Sandra, 149. See also The Nashville Tennessean
Rodgers, Reverend Julian S., 68
Rogers, "Boots", 17
Rolands Feature Film Company, 137. See also The Frank Case

(Film)
Rosenau, Dr. William, 72
Rosenberg, Doctor, 53
Rosenwald, Julius, 60
Ross, Edward Alsworth, 112, 113. See also Stereotypes of the

Jew
Rosser, Luther Z., Sr., 8, 12, 29, 32
Rothschild, Rabbi Jacob M., 134. See also Hebrew Benevolent

Congregation Bombing in 1958; Mrs. Janice Rothschild

Blumberg

S

Sacco, Nicola (Sacco-Vanzetti Case), 61, 63. See also Bartolomeo

Vanzetti
Saint Louis Post'Dispatchy 85
Saint Paul, 119

Samuels, Charles, 137. See also Night Fell on Georgia
Samuels, Louise, 137. See also Night Fell on Geor£fia
SchifF, Herbert G., 41-42
SchifF, Jacob H., 60
Schmeir, Louis E., 25, 126. See also Expulsions of Jews in

Thomasville, Georgia; Sigmund Lichtenstein
Schwartz, Dale M., 151. See also Charles E Wittenstein; Georgia

State Board of Pardons and Paroles
Scott, Detective Harry, 11, 28, 34, 40. See also Pinkerton

Detective Agency

Index 245

Scottsboro Boys, 61, 63

Seal of Georgia, 178, 179

Second Baptist Church, 9

Seigenthaler, John Lawrence, 148, 149, 150, 151, 157. See also

The Nashville Tennessean; Jerry Thompson; Robert

Sherborne; Alonzo McCiendon Mann; Thomas Bertram

Lance
Seiig, Emil, 20, 43-44
Seiig, Josephine, 20
Selig, Lucille. See Lucille Frank

Seligman, Joseph, 25. See also Anti-Semitism in America
Sentell, Edgar, 13
Sessions, Moultrie M., 77
Shane Quarterlyy 129, 187. See also Reverend Luther Otterbein

Bricker
Sherborne, Robert, 149. See also Jerry Thompson; Alonzo

McCiendon Mann; The Nashville Tennessean
Sherman, Senator Lawrence, 75
Sherman, General William Tecumseh, 4, 30
Sherrill, Reverend Alvan E, 185. See also the Outlook
"Shylock", 120. See also Stereotypes of the Jew; Anti-Semitism
Siedenberg, Reverend S. J., 76
Simmons, Colonel William Joseph, 132, 133, 143. See also Ku

Klux Klan; The Birth of a Nation; Stone Mountain

(Georgia)
Simmons, Mrs. J. B., 67. See also Police Fraud and the Frank

Case
Slaton, Governor John Marshall, 75, 79, 80, 83, 86, 87, 88, 89,

102, 104, 134, 135, 144, 145. See also Thomas Edward

Watson; Solicitor General Hugh Manson Dorsey; Mayor

James G. Woodward; Knights of Mary Phagan; "Mob

Spirit"
Slavery, 169
Smith, Dr. Claude (Atlanta City Baaeriologist and Chemist),

18,36
Smith, Dr. Rcmbert G. (Clergyman), 183
Smith, Frederick Van L., 32, 52. See also Jury Members in

Phagan Murder Trial
Smith, Hoke, 55, 79, 83. See also Adanta Racial Riot (1906)
Smith, Reverend W. E, 102

246 INDEX

Smith, Warden James E., 93. See also MiUedgeviUe Penitentiary
Smith, William M., 38, 58, 59, 70, 78, 135, 158. See also James

Conley; Judge Leonard Strickland Roan; Georgia Prison

Commission
Snipes, Ruby, 67
Snow, Wayne, Jr., 158. See also Georgia State Board of Pardons

and Paroles
Sousa, John Philip, 16

Southern League (Baseball), 4, 52. See also Atlanta Crackers
Southern Sociological Congress, 5, 12
Souvenir Collecting (at Lynching), 97
Speer, Robert Elliott, 114. See also the Christian Century
St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 67. See also Dr. C. B. Wilmer
Stames, Detective John, 11, 33
Stelker, Joe, 45

Stephens, Assistant Solicitor General E. A., 29
Stereotypes of the Jew, 112, 113, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 126,

127. See also Anti-Semitism; Populist Movement; Edward

Alsworth Ross; Joshua Trachtenberg
Stem, Otto, 102
Stevens, Thaddeus, 125
Stone Mountain (Georgia), 132, 133. See also Ku Klux Klan;

Colonel William Joseph Simmons
Stover, Monteen, 38-39, 40
Sunday, WiUiam Ashley "Billy" (Preacher), 75, 83

T

Talmud Burnings in Europe, 117

The Temple. See Hebrew Benevolent Congregation

Terminus, 21

They Don't For£fet (Film), 137. See also Ward Greene; Death in the
Deep South

Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918, 129. See
also Lynching, U.S. History of

Thompson, Jerry, 148, 149. See also John Lawrence Seigenthaler;
Alonzo McClendon Mann; Robert Sherborne; The Nashville
Tennessean

The Tower (Prison), 18, 66

Trachtenberg, Joshua, 129. See also Stereotypes of the Jew; Anti-
Semitism in Europe and Russia

True Bill, 25-26

Index 247

U

Uncle RemuSy 30. See also Joel Chandler Harris
United Confederate \feterans, 9
The United Presbyterian, 172
United States District Court, 70
United States Supreme Court, 70, 71, 82
The Universalist Leader, 174, 177
Ursanbach, Charles E, 45

V

Vafiada, Demetre, 17

"Valdosta", 101. See also Captain L. B. Irwin

Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 63. See also Nicola Sacco

\fenable Building, 3, 46-47. See also Mr. A. D. Greenfield

\folkman, Ernest, 143. See also Anti-Semitism in America

W

Waggoner, Detective, 30

Walker, Governor Clifford Mitchell (Georgia), 144, 145

The Washington Post, 61

The Watchman-Examiner, 179

Watson, Thomas Edward, 71, 76, 77, 90, 126, 135. See also

Populist Movement; Sigmund lAchttnstcm\Jeffersonian;

Watson^s Magazine; Louis E. Schmeir; Comer Win

Woodward
Watson's Magazine (Thomson, Ga.), 126. See also Thomas

Edward Watson
Wesleyan Christian Advocate, 172, 173, 175, 180, 181, 183, 186.

See also "Mob Spirit"
Westmoreland, Dr. Willis, 47
White, John Arthur, 1 1

White, Mrs. Maggie (Mrs. John A.), 12, 34, 40
White, Reverend Dr. John E., 83, 84. See also Georgia Prison

Commission
Wilkinson, Bill, 148. See also Jerry Thompson; Ku Klux Klan
Willis, Bill, 149, 150. See also John Lawrence Seigenthaler; The

Nashville Tennessean
Wilmer, Dr. C. B., 67, 80, 81, 105. See also St. Luke's Episcopal

Church; Governor John Marshall Slaton

248 INDEX

Wilson, Woodrow, 30

Winbum, Fred, 30, 52, 53. See also Jury Members in Phagan
Murder Trial

Wing, Michael H., 158. See also Georgia State Board of P^dons
and Paroles

Wittenstein, Charles E, 138, 148, 151, 152, 155. See also Anti-
Defamation League of B'nai B'rith; Georgia State Board of
Pardons and Proles; Dale M. Schwartz; Stuart Lewengrub;
Arthur Hyman

Wxxi, Attorney John, 98. See also Judge Newton Morris

Woods, Father Henry, 184, 185. See also America

Woodward, Comer Vann, 83. See also Populist Movement;
Thomas Edward Watson

Woodward, M. S., 52. See also Jury Members in Phagan Murder
Trial

Woodward, Mayor James G., 55, 102. See also Governor John
Marshall Slaton

r

%ung, Reverend Dr. S. Edward, 74-75

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